


act ii: all that is keeping me here

by hakyeonni



Series: the man with starlight in his soul [2]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic, VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Dialogue Heavy, Gen, M/M, angsty flashbacks incoming, slow burn angst, the kpop/star wars crossover no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 19:57:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9458192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hakyeonni/pseuds/hakyeonni
Summary: when sanghyuk gets a message that his friends are in danger, he doesn't hesitate to swoop in and rescue them—little does he know it will set him down an irreversible and dangerous path...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> once again, [here's](https://twitter.com/hakyeonni/status/821339961362292736) the twitter thread just in case you need it! :)

The Jedi Temple is eerie at night.

Sanghyuk knows it like the back of his hand, now. After a year of trailing doggedly after the Council, and a year of Satele having him running errands across the whole place, he knows every nook and cranny. He knows which corner of the Council chambers gets the best holonet connection; he knows how the quickest way to get downstairs is to slide down the bannister; and he knows the easiest way to sneak inside after hours. Which is why he’s lying on his back on the huge table in the Council chambers, staring up at the ceiling and ignoring T7, whose beeps Sanghyuk interprets as imploring him back to bed (he can’t understand T7 outright, of course—he needs a protocol droid for that—but after a year together he’s starting to get the nuance of what the droid is saying); the eeriness calls to him somehow, puts him on edge, and he craves that.

“If I go back to bed, I’ll just have another nightmare,” Sanghyuk reminds him, not caring that he’s being entirely sacrilegious by starfishing on the very table that’s hosted a thousand Council meetings, decided the fate of the galaxy, et cetera. “And I’m sick of having nightmares.”

He’d had them when he first arrived, although he could never remember anything in them, aside from two purple lightsabers and one red one. They had faded after Satele had taught him meditation techniques, and he’d largely forgotten about them. In the past month or so, though, they’ve been coming back—different this time, because now when Sanghyuk wakes his head hurts and his mouth is dry and he’s overcome with a terrible feeling of dread.

T7 makes a noise that Sanghyuk knows is indignant, and he shrugs, closing his eyes and resting his hands behind his head. “Go, then. No skin off my nose.”

Sometimes he finds himself missing Tatooine with a fierceness he didn’t even know he had in him. He knows he shouldn’t, knows that Tatooine really is the armpit of the galaxy, but it was home regardless. He’s only recently started feeling like Tython is home, like he actually belongs, but he still wishes he could see the Dune Sea again, dotted with nothing except a few Banthas as far as the eye could see, or the rocky outpost of the Jundland Wastes, where his farm had been, with dramatic canyons and cliffs where the Sand People lived.

He tries not to think of Taekwoon. He _tries_ not to miss him, or Hongbin. Maybe that’s why he misses Tatooine instead; he’s channelling that energy into something more productive. Because he can easily go back to Tatooine—he’s learnt a lot in this past year, including how to pilot starships, so flying wherever he wanted would not be difficult—but he cannot go to where Taekwoon is. He doesn’t even _know_ where Taekwoon is. He knows he’s alive, because he eavesdrops when he checks in with the Council, once every month or so, but not much more. Once he’d asked Satele when Hongbin would be coming back to Tython to face the Trials to become a Knight, and she’d just said ‘when he’s ready,’ a typical cryptic Jedi answer that left him frustrated. He’d gone outside and shot a tree full of holes, but it hadn’t really helped. Neither did meditation. He has no desert to wander through, now.

T7 starts beeping at fever pitch, breaking Sanghyuk out of his revelry, and he sits up and glares in the general direction of the droid. His beeps indicate alarm, but there’s absolutely nothing to be alarmed about, for God’s sake—it’s 3 am and everyone is sleeping, as they should be. But T7 is beeping at the holonet terminal, on the wall near the doors (exactly opposite of where the best connection is), which is lit up like a Christmas tree. _That_ makes him perk up. There’s no reason they should be getting a transmission at this time of night. He hauls himself off the table and hurries over to the console, logging in using Master Orgus Din’s password, the one he’d found out surreptitiously a few months ago and has only used a handful of times since, only to search the archives or the holonet for Taekwoon’s name.

“It’s a transmission from Nar Shaddaa,” he blurts, looking down at T7 with surprise. If Tatooine is the armpit of the galaxy, Nar Shaddaa is the slimy bit between the galaxy’s toes. It’s a moon run by the Hutts, which means it’s pretty much lawless—but not in a good way. Tatooine is lawless because no one cares, but Nar Shaddaa is lawless because the Hutts like it like that. He has no idea what a Jedi is doing there, but he opens the transmission anyway, not even feeling the slightest bit of guilt.

“Master Satele… mission you sent… Sith… apprentice…”

Sanghyuk blinks up at the hologram that’s appeared in front of him. The face he’s thought of daily, the voice he hears in his dreams, that same fucking brown overrobe that he kicks himself for not stealing—it’s _Taekwoon_ , and he’s too stunned to do anything but breathe and watch. He looks the same, almost, he’s grown out his hair so it’s now tied back into a loose ponytail that’s coming undone. He would look the same, of course. It’s only been a year. But Sanghyuk has changed so much, and he doesn’t look like he’s changed at all. Do Jedi even change?

“Betrayed… overwhelmed… forces… injured… Hongbin,” Taekwoon is saying. He’s poised in a half-crouch, like he’s about to be interrupted any moment, and there’s a suspicious dark stain on his robes that Sanghyuk hopes isn’t blood. “Need… reinforcements… send…”

The last thing Sanghyuk sees, right before the transmission cuts off, is Taekwoon’s expression changing, hardening into a mask and him reaching for his lightsabers. He stares at the empty console for a second, his breathing ragged and his fingers twitching. What does he even _do?_ It’s not his place to do anything, really. The Masters will find this in the morning. But by then it will be too late, especially as Sanghyuk knows they’ll have a meeting about it, and the meeting will drag on for hours as they debate the ins and outs of sending someone to rescue Taekwoon. Sanghyuk has seen it happen countless times before. It’s not his place, it’s not his place, he should run and wake up Satele, but now that he’s faced with Taekwoon again all he can do is tremble.

“T7, clean up that transmission if you can,” he barks, sticking his thumbnail in his mouth and chewing it doggedly. Obediently, the droid plugs into the computer, and the transmission begins playing again. This time it’s a bit clearer—Sanghyuk can see the way Taekwoon’s eyebrows are drawn together, the way he twitches at a noise—but it’s still garbled beyond recognition. The important stuff is there, anyway, and it’s all he really needs to know. “Come on. We’re going.”

//

The only thing he leaves behind is a datapad, opened to a message addressed to Satele. Everything else he takes, although even after a year he still hasn’t acquired much of value. He has lots of clothes, now; finely made garments that fit him perfectly and suit Tython’s climate brilliantly. He has a new set of armour—Satele’s birthday gift to him. He has his two blasters, of course. He has his holocom. He has T7, who, when Sanghyuk implores him to stay at the Temple, zaps him on the leg with his electro probe. Even after a year, this is all he is reduced to: an empty bedroom and an apologetic letter. Perhaps he was never made to stay on Tython. Perhaps it was never his fate to make an impression, and that’s why it’s so easy for him to fade.

He picks a reasonable-sized ship from the hangar. It’s not as big as Taekwoon’s ship was, but it’s not a tiny fighter, either; it has two bedrooms and that’s enough, because he figures someone can share. Most importantly, though, it has a hyperdrive, and when he sits himself down in the captain’s chair, his hands hovering above the panels, he has to take a moment to breathe.

This might be quite possibly the stupidest thing he has ever done—and that’s saying a lot, since he’s the one who tried to _shoot a Sith_. But the way Taekwoon had flattened his lips and extended his lightsabers… The way his voice cracked when he said _injured_ … Well, Sanghyuk’s spent too long dreaming of seeing Taekwoon again to turn down an opportunity to repay him for the huge kindness he did him. So he turns around and barks at T7 to prep the hyperdrive for a jump to Nar Shaddaa as he powers up the ship, knowing he doesn’t have much time to get away before Satele senses that something’s wrong and goes to investigate. He steers the ship shakily out of the hangar and then pushes the throttle in, screaming up towards the sky, biting his lip as the cockpit begins to glow orange as the atmosphere tries to reject them.

The moment he’s in space he drops the throttles back to idle and tries to breathe as they drift. Stupid, stupid, he’s an _idiot_. He’s not sure if this is forgivable. Who in their right mind would be crazy enough to steal a ship from the fucking Jedi? The Jedi _Council_ at that, who have been nothing but accommodating to Sanghyuk—they could have easily shipped him away to another planet to get him out of their hair. But no, they treated him like one of their own and this is how he repays them. And yet, and yet he can’t bring himself to turn back, so he instead pushes the hyperdrive lever in with his right hand as he settles the other on the yoke, his eyes wide as he’s pushed back into his seat as they make the leap into hyperspace. It will probably take an hour, maybe a little bit less before they arrive, so he slumps back into the seat and exhales slowly, closing his eyes and trying to centre himself. He never was good at meditating, really, even though he tried. He’s just too hands-on, too full of energy; sitting still in one place for hours at a time was dull. He knows it helped with his nightmares in the beginning, and knows it’s still a good method of calming himself down, but he finds it hard to be calm when he’s flying into a strange system, to a moon he’s never been to, to meet someone he hasn’t heard from in a year. It’s idiotic and it’s stupid and yet there’s some small part of him that is so very alive, because here is the excitement that he’s been craving ever since he touched down planetside; here is his chance to see the galaxy once more.

//

“Taekwoon…”

He realises he doesn’t even know what to say, doesn’t know how to leave Taekwoon this message. It’s been so long since they last spoke. Does Taekwoon even remember him? Will he know who the hell he’s talking to? Sanghyuk has to try, at least, so he looks straight into the holocom and steels himself. “I got your message. I’m sure the Council will be sending someone to help you… But in the meantime, I’m coming. I’ll try and help as much as I can.”

_I’ve been thinking of you._

_I miss you._

_Why did you never call?_

“I’ll see you soon.”

He tucks his holocom back into his pocket and stares down at his helmet, sitting neatly on the bed where he’d pulled it out. The closer he gets to Nar Shaddaa the more he realises just how catastrophically stupid he’s been. He’s never even seen a Hutt before, although he can speak Huttese reasonably well, simply because a lot of people on Tatooine spoke it in lieu of Basic; its proximity in the Outer Rim naturally attracts gangsters, and the biggest gangsters of them all are the Hutts. And yet here he is, not having shot anything more challenging than a Flesh Raider for the past year, jetting off into… into god knows what, since Taekwoon isn’t picking up his holocom and the details Sanghyuk could decipher from the message (that T7 had downloaded, that Sanghyuk had watched at least ten times over and over) are scant at best.

He grabs his helmet and tucks it under his arm. Mandalorian armour—finished in a deep navy blue—because it’s the best and Satele said he deserved the best (thinking of that now sends a pang of guilt through his belly, but he can’t do anything about it). He always felt like a bounty hunter while wearing it, but that will come to his advantage now. On Tython they’d never let him do anything really dangerous—they’d never let him go offworld. All he’d had to do was defend the Academy with the Jedi when the Flesh Raiders decided to attack, but it was about as difficult as shooting Womp Rats and there’d been no challenge. Occasionally he would escort a group of Initiates from here to there, and he felt like a fraud every single time, dressed up like a bounty hunter leading a scraggly group of ten-year-olds through Tython’s calm, leafy woods.

T7 beeps at him from the bridge, and he turns away from the bed and strides away, sliding back into the seat and looking down at the console. Now that T7 is plugged into the ship’s central computers, when he communicates it is translated to text that appears on a screen just next to his right hand. It’s sort of strange, to be able to read what T7 is saying, considering they rarely use protocol droids to communicate—those are always busy with the Council—but it’s better than just guessing. _Master, we are about to come out of hyperspace,_ the screen reads, and Sanghyuk rolls his eyes.

“Don’t bother with that Master crap. I’m not a Jedi,” he mutters, placing his hand on the hyperspace lever. “Are we good?”

 _Yes_ , T7 replies, so Sanghyuk pulls the lever back and places his hands on the console. With a jolt they’re returned to normal flight, and Sanghyuk has to take a moment to stare, wide-eyed, at the moon that’s looming up towards them. Nar Shaddaa orbits Nal Hutta, the homeworld of the Hutts, but it’s the moon that’s bright and sparkling and beckoning as they fly towards it. Just like Coruscant, the capital of the Republic, its surface has been overtaken by cities spread across the whole moon, and it’s these lights that are blinking up at them. He has never seen anything like it, and although he’s seen pictures on the holonet, this is another reality entirely.

“Attention _Fury_. We have you identified on our sensors as a Republic class ship. Identify and state intentions, over,” a voice suddenly barks through the radio, and Sanghyuk flinches.

 _Nar Shaddaa Control_ , T7 says, and Sanghyuk bites his lip. He has no idea what to say. The Republic is not welcome in this sector, that much he knows. He’s probably lucky he hasn’t been shot down yet. “Uh, _Fury_. This is bounty hunter Owisso Cesthe…” he starts, using the name of one of the Initiates back on Tython who had taken a particular liking to him—he was a little Togruta boy, and he laughed delightedly every time Sanghyuk pulled playfully on his head tails. “...reporting as requested to, uh…” He wracks his brains for Hutt names, knowing he’d read an article on them on the holonet just the other week, except now he can’t remember a thing. “Uh, to Toobu the Hutt,” he finishes weakly, his hand on the throttles in case they need to make a speedy getaway.

 _Smooth_ , the console reads when Sanghyuk looks down at it, and he stares at T7, surprised that the droid is sassing him. “I’d like to see you—” he begins, but is cut off by another command through the radio.

“ _Fury_ , proceed to docking bay C-18 at Mezenti Spaceport and check in at customs. Landing permission granted, over,” the anonymous voice says.

Slightly dazed, Sanghyuk repeats the instructions and watches as the coordinates for docking bay C-18 flash up on one of the computers. Without him even having to ask, T7 automatically steers the ship in that direction, and Sanghyuk clenches his fingers around the yoke and wings up a prayer to whoever may be listening that he doesn’t get killed and that he’s able to find Taekwoon in time. The Hutts _really_ don’t like being messed with, and he may have just made a grave error in naming Toobu. The only thing he knows is that Toobu holds quite a bit of power planetside, and perhaps he’ll be able to wrangle that to his advantage, although he has no idea where to even begin.

They fly in silence, Sanghyuk controlling the throttle and letting T7 steer as they land in the docking bay gently. He has no idea what’s waiting for him outside, but all he can do is walk out with his chin held high and trust in his own skills to get him out of whatever situation he finds himself in. That’s easier said than done, though, since he’s been hanging out with Jedi for the last year and while he now shares their attitude he certainly doesn’t share their competence. Perhaps a little more fear would be healthy, but the only fear he has is for Taekwoon, not for himself.

He sets the ship down gently and powers off the engines, pulling on his helmet and steeling himself as the doors open and the ramp descends, completely unsure of what he’s going to find on the outside. _If I survived on Tatooine, I can survive anywhere_ , he reminds himself, taking a deep breath and stepping outside, reassured by the weight of his blasters on his hips and the quiet whirs and clicks of T7 behind him.

As it turns out, hangar C-18 at Mezenti Spaceport looks just like every other spaceport he’s been in—drab, concrete, and rather cold. The only thing different about this one is the glow of fluorescent lights leaking out through a doorway on the other side of the hangar to where he is, and the human waiting patiently at the foot of the ramp. She’s young, and dressed in plain black cotton robes, her hair tied in two plaits, but what makes Sanghyuk falter and nearly trip is the shock collar around her neck. After all these years seeing one of those collars—the mark of a slave, of someone owned—still makes his stomach turn, and he has to resist the urge to back away from her. It’s not her fault, after all, and Sanghyuk’s demons don’t need to rear their heads here. Her head is bowed, her eyes on the floor, just like she’s been trained, and when Sanghyuk stops in front of her all he can see is the crown of her head. “Mr. Cesthe. Master Toobu requests your presence on his pleasure barge,” she murmurs, and extends an arm towards the doorway.

Sanghyuk’s eyebrows shoot up at the mention of a pleasure barge—he doesn’t really know what to make of that—and he’s kind of glad he’s got his helmet on so she can’t see. Wordlessly, he starts towards the doorway, feeling both the woman and T7 follow him, although she catches up and starts trotting alongside him, her eyes still dutifully trained on the floor. Some slavers are lax about what their slaves can and cannot do—Sanghyuk knew a few back home who didn’t even wear collars, and were treated more like members of the family than slaves—but Toobu is evidently not one of them. “What’s your name?” he blurts before he can stop himself, although he’s not sure why.

She looks up at him at that, her eyes wide, and it’s pretty clear that Sanghyuk’s the first person who has asked her name before—if ever. She’s young, probably around eighteen or so, and pretty, which isn’t surprising. The Hutts are sleazy and like to keep pretty things close by. “My name?” she stutters as they walk through the doorway, the vibrant reds and oranges and blues beckoning them inward. “I’m—I’m Risha.”

He forgets to reply to her as they cross the threshold, because they’ve walked into a large hall that Sanghyuk supposes must be customs—but it’s not anything like the customs on Tatooine. Everything’s aglow with holos of dancing women and Twi’lek and lights that change what would be an ordinary room into something seedy. There’s signs pointing to strip clubs and gambling dens and cantinas, in both Basic and Huttese, but Sanghyuk ignores all that and makes his way to a console, tapping the screen impatiently to wake it up. He has to hope that, since he’s never been scanned in at customs before, this scanner won’t pick him up as being… whatever he is. He doesn’t even know what he is. He’s not a Jedi, and he’s not working for the Council anymore. So he’d probably be flagged as a Republic ally, which, combined with the ship he’s arrived in, could mean trouble. The Hutts don’t like to publicly align themselves with anyone, but more often than not they side with the Empire in disputes.

“Here,” Risha says, shouldering him aside gently and tapping at the console expertly. It’s all in Huttese, and Sanghyuk’s not as good as reading Huttese as he is at speaking it, but Risha seems fluent enough. “Who are you?”

 _Good question,_ Sanghyuk thinks grimly, but he shrugs. “You know my name. I’m a bounty hunter.”

A lie that Risha sees through easily, he can tell, because her lips quirk up into a small smile that doesn’t fade until they pass through customs (uneventfully, to Sanghyuk’s delight) and head down a hallway that’s labelled _Barges_. “Who are you _really?”_ she whispers, looking around nervously, glancing at T7 like he’s going to spill Sanghyuk’s secrets. “Your armour is so new it’s shiny and you arrived in a Republic ship with what I’ll bet is a Republic droid. Is this something to do with those Jedi?”

“Jedi?” Sanghyuk barks, stopping in his tracks for a moment. “What Jedi?”

Risha grimaces, like the information is painful to regurgitate. “All I know is another Republic ship landed about a month ago, and two Jedi arrived. Asked a few questions. They went away, but about a week ago, Master Toobu brought one of them back in chains.”

Sanghyuk’s mind races at lightspeed as he blinks at her back, scrambling to catch up. So—so they were here. He’s not sure if that’s good or bad for him, doesn’t know if this will help. Who was captured? Why did they get separated? He has so many questions, more than _when_ he had no information to go off at all, and the thought of Hongbin or Taekwoon in chains, relegated to being a Hutt’s pet, has him feeling vaguely sick. “What does he look like? The one your Master captured?” he blurts, but Risha’s eyes are trained on the floor and she acts like she can’t even hear him as they cross another threshold into a large room that’s open on one side. There are several barges docked, but she makes a beeline across the floor towards the largest one, and he has no choice but to follow. “Risha, seriously,” he says as they get closer, knowing the window of opportunity he has is fading. “What does he look like? It’s important—”

Risha turns to look at him, and it’s when she opens her mouth to reply that she yelps, her back arching and her eyes closing, the collar around her neck crackling with electricity. Sanghyuk almost reaches out to touch her, to make sure she’s okay, but realises just in time that they have an audience—the barge parked right in front of them, and the huge Hutt front and center. A bounty hunter wouldn’t give a shit about a slave. He’s already made the mistake of being caught talking to her, and he really can’t afford to make mistakes, not when there’s so much on the line. “Master Toobu will see you now,” she mutters, dipping her head to the floor and gesturing for Sanghyuk to make his way aboard the barge.

Sanghyuk does, hating himself for every step he takes, hating this Hutt more. He’ll never forget the way the shock collar felt around his neck, not ever, and he despises anyone who inflicts that pain and shame on someone else. He wants to rebel, wants to fight and scream and rail against all this horrific injustice, but knows he _can’t_ , not unless he wants to be shot where he stands. Instead he parks himself in front of Toobu, his back straight, his chin up, T7 by his side. The Hutt is huge, like they all are, and grotesque, like they all are. He’s lounging on what looks to be a custom built… throne, which is absurd. All around them are dancers, mostly Twi’leks but some human, and various other people milling around. Guests of Toobu, he guesses. He feels distinctly out of place—apart from the armed guards, stationed just behind Toobu to either side of him—he’s the only one wearing armour. He’s certainly the only one with his face obscured.

“What is this?” Toobu booms in Huttese to no one in particular, gesturing at Sanghyuk dismissively. “Don’t tell me this is the bounty hunter with the Republic ship.”

Risha scurries forward and bows low. “Master, I have brought you Owisso Cesthe, who claims to be a bounty hunter. He and his droid wish to speak to you.”

For a moment Sanghyuk thinks she’s going to tell his secret—that he has something to do with the two Jedi that were here just a month before. She’s not stupid, he can tell, and she’d obviously picked up on his urgency. As far as she knows he can’t understand what they’re saying, so she has nothing to lose. But she doesn’t. Instead Toobu waves at her and she takes her place at his side, her eyes boring a hole in the floor. “Bring out the protocol droid,” the Hutt says.

“There’s no need for that,” Sanghyuk says in Huttese. He’s rusty at speaking, because he never really did it much back on Tatooine, but his voice doesn’t even waver, even if he’s positively quaking in his boots. All he can think of is Taekwoon, of Hongbin, of whatever must have befallen them on this horrid place. “I speak Huttese.”

Toobu deigns to look at him at that, and Sanghyuk thinks he can read surprise on that horrible, lizard-like face. If he had to guess, he would assume that the type of company Toobu keeps don’t speak Huttese, if he’s as big of a gangster as the holonet says he is. “Aha!” The Hutt says, laughing, and the sound is so guttural and awful Sanghyuk has to resist the urge to cover his ears. “Now _that’s_ interesting. I always enjoy conversing with humans in Huttese. Now, what are you here for, Cesthe, considering I did not, in fact, request the pleasure of your company?”

Taking a deep breath in and out, Sanghyuk folds his arms over his chest. He’d been worried about what to say, but the new information from Risha has helped him, unbelievably. It’s made him more panicky, but it has helped. “Easiest way to get through to land. I’m here for the Jedi. One of them is my current bounty.”

“Oh? And who would put a bounty on a Jedi?” Toobu asks, smiling down at Sanghyuk like he’s being friendly. “Could it be the Sith, who seem to be so desperate to catch them? Or… could it be the Republic, who sent you here to get him under the guise of being a bounty hunter? Tell me, _Cesthe_ ,” spits Toobu, “how do you explain the ship you arrived in?”

Sanghyuk hates how smart this Hutt is, although it makes sense—he wouldn’t be such a prominent figure in the underworld of Nar Shaddaa if he wasn’t intelligent. But his judgement is way, way off. The Council would never send him to fetch anything; they don’t trust him enough for that. In a sense he is a vigilante. He plays to no one’s rules, certainly not the Council’s, and there’s really nothing stopping him from pulling out his guns and shooting this hideous lizard dead where he stands—nothing except his own morality. And the armed guards, of course. The realisation that no longer is he under the Council’s watchful eye, that he is unrestricted totally, is somewhat freeing and he laughs, to Toobu’s surprise. “Nice guess, but you aren’t even close. The ship is from my last bounty. It was faster than my last ride, so I took it along when the contract was done.” Somewhat boldly, he rests his right hand on his blaster, not taking it out of the holster but feeling the weight of it underneath his fingers. It’s not a threat, not yet, but it could be. “So why don’t you just tell me where I can find Master Taekwoon?”

With a quick movement that belies his size, Toobu slides off his throne to come to a stop in front of Sanghyuk, peering down at him, their faces close together. He’s so close that Sanghyuk could reach out and poke him in the eye, if he wanted to, which he doesn’t; the Hutt _stinks_ , and he wrinkles his nose and resists the urge to lean away. “A curious request from one so young,” the Hutt mumbles, and Sanghyuk holds his breath. “You can’t hide your youth from me, boy. I see all. Now, would you like to reevaluate your story?”

Before Sanghyuk can reply, Toobu holds out his arm, and Risha scurries forward and places a holocom on his palm. Toobu presses a button and shoves the holocom in Sanghyuk’s face, forcing him to take a step back, part out of shock—because Satele is standing there on the holocom, tinged in blue, and Sanghyuk’s blood runs cold. They must have searched the ship. “Sanghyuk, I got your message. I understand that you’re worried about Master Taekwoon, but you need to come home. Nar Shaddaa is a dangerous place and you’re not ready to travel there alone. The Council is discussing strategies to extract Taekwoon and Hongbin, but we don’t need you out there being a vigilante because of how much you miss him. Please come home.”

There’s a moment of silence when the holocom goes dead where all Sanghyuk can hear is the blood thumping through his veins—once, twice, _thuthump, thuthump_ , before Toobu grabs him by the arm and tosses him away as if he weighed nothing. He crashes to the floor painfully, the shields on his armour pinging wildly, the inside of his visor lighting up like a christmas tree; all he can hear is the beeps of the system and T7’s wail above it all. Blearily he tries to push himself up, but Toobu swings his tail and he goes flying again, this time hitting a pylon. The world is fuzzy, and his visor is screaming at him visually, telling him not to move, but still he tries to get up. This is his only chance to get to Taekwoon. He can’t have flown halfway across the galaxy to fail now because of some stupid overgrown slug. But he only manages to make it onto his knees before Toobu backhands him, and when he hits the ground the last thing he sees is a readout on his visor: _loss of consciousness inevitable._


	2. Chapter 2

_Wake up._

Taekwoon?

_Get up, bounty hunter._

Two purple lightsabers, a red one. That’s what he should be seeing. Or not seeing anything at all, but rather feeling a horrible sense of dread, like something bad’s coming. Instead he doesn’t feel anything. Maybe a nice floaty feeling, but that’s sort of it. His head stings.

_Get up!_

His eyes snap open, and he’s staring up into the face of a girl, a pretty girl, her hair done up in braids. Her name—what was her name? He tries to sit up but his head swims and he feels like he’s going to vomit, so he groans and flops down on his back. Risha. That was it. Her name is Risha, and they’re in some damp, dank hallway, if the narrow walls and fluorescent lighting above her head is anything to go by. “Risha, you have a halo,” he mumbles, pointing at her head and grinning stupidly.

“Get up,” she says again, and he realises it wasn’t Taekwoon’s voice he was hearing but hers. Obligingly, he reaches out his hand and scrambles to his feet, with her help, and she thrusts his helmet into his hands without giving him time to adjust. “Put this on. Come on.”

“Where are we going?” he asks as he follows her. He doesn’t have a choice, really. He doesn’t know where he is or where he’s going, so this seems like the best way to find out, even though his head feels like it’s been run over by a truck and his arm feels kind of funny. Sassing a Hutt was a bad idea, he realises retroactively. He never knew being thrown around by one would hurt this much. At least he’s not injured too badly, and when he slides his helmet on he finds his armour is relatively unscathed—the shields shattered when he was thrown against the pylon, but they will rebuild themselves in half an hour or so. All he needs to do now is find T7 and Taekwoon or Hongbin, whoever Toobu has in custody, and get the fuck away from wherever they are. “Where are we?”

Risha doesn’t say anything, just bows her head and hurries along. The hallway is hot, and when Sanghyuk runs his hand along the wall his gloves catch the condensation dripping there. Maybe now that he’s (probably) deep in the bowels of a Hutt’s pleasure barge, with very little chance of escape, his holsters empty and his head hurting, he should be afraid. But the fear still doesn’t come. Every dogged step he takes is for Taekwoon, every breath, every heartbeat, and it’s been like that longer than he would care to admit. Satele’s voice rings in his head: _Jedi aren’t meant to form attachments._

_“What’s wrong?”_

_Sanghyuk is startled out of his trance and he nearly jumps a foot in the air. It’s just Satele, of course; she’s the one who had shown him this spot in the woods, after all. But he still wasn’t expecting her to sneak up on him. “Nothing. Why do you think something’s wrong?”_

_Gracefully she folds herself onto the ground across from him, and as he watches she closes her eyes and begins to glow, as all Jedi do when they meditate. Sanghyuk himself doesn’t—he’s Force-sensitive but untrained, so all he can really do is sense things rather than actually use the Force—so it had freaked him out the first time he’d seen it. “Because you only meditate when something is wrong,” she replies evenly._

_In another universe Sanghyuk would have a braid trailing down past his ear and he’d be wearing robes, but instead he has two blasters strapped to his hips and he’s wearing pants. As it is, Satele is his Master in anything but name, after all she has done for him in such a short time. “You know me too well,” he concedes, sagging and untucking his legs to stretch them out in front of him. “I can’t stop thinking of Taekwoon.”_

_“Master Taekwoon did you a great favour. It is natural you keep thinking about him.”_

_It’s more than that, though, Sanghyuk knows. It’s how he wakes in the night gasping because in his dreams Taekwoon had been there, running a hand down his chest, curling another in his hair. It’s how his heart races whenever he thinks of Taekwoon’s hand skimming down his waist to grab his blasters. It’s how he misses Taekwoon so much it actually hurts him, even though they only met for three days. Ridiculous of him to hold such a flame, because it’s been four months now and Taekwoon hasn’t been back to visit. He hasn’t even called. How much of this Satele knows he can’t be sure, so he just closes his eyes and sighs, hating himself for lying to her. It’s a lie of omission, but a lie nonetheless. “I miss him,” he says, knowing he has to give her something._

_Her eyes snap open, but she continues to glow. “I sense there is more to it than that.”_

_“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”_

_There’s a long silence, where they both just stare at each other evenly. Satele has a good thirty-five years on him (he’d spent a long time in the Jedi archives not long after he arrived, looking up every fact about the Council he could find) and yet they’re as different as different can be. She is a war hero. He was eleven when the Treaty of Coruscant was signed and the War ended. She’s a Jedi Master. He is a street-rat from Tatooine. And yet there’s nothing but stubbornness between the both of them as they purse their lips at each other, not wanting to break the silence. Sanghyuk is nineteen, but he isn’t stupid; he knows he’s walking a dangerous path._

_Satele cracks first. “You know it is forbidden for Jedi to form attachments,” she reminds him gently, the glow around her fading._

_Sanghyuk just stares at her for a long moment before getting to his feet. “I’m not a Jedi,” he mutters, and turns his back on her and walks away._

He’s jolted out of his memories by Risha closing a hand around his forearm and shoving him forward. He stumbles, his feet giving way underneath him, and crashes clumsily to the ground again; it’s only when he’s struggling to his feet that he hears the clang of a door closing shut behind him, and when he whirls he finds himself blocked by steel bars—the cell he never saw coming because he was too busy stuck in his own head. Risha, hovering on the other side of the bars, looks upset, but Sanghyuk doesn’t have much pity for her. “I’ll try and find your droid,” she whispers, and before he can reply she whirls and runs back down the hallway, her feet slapping in the puddles, an echo of freedom that Sanghyuk can’t touch.

The temptation for him to lose his temper is strong, and the only thing that keeps him from snapping is the fact he’ll probably injure himself more by thrashing about. There’s no point to it, anyway. All he has is everything on his body, minus his blasters. He doesn’t have T7, whose plasma cutters would make short work of the bars; he can’t even try to hack into the lock because it’s one that takes a key—not to mention he doesn’t even have the equipment. He doesn’t have a lightsaber, although that would be nice. Instead he’s been locked away in the bowels of a planet where he doesn’t exist, where he could blink off the face of the universe and no one would bat an eye. _And_ he has completely failed at what he set out to do; he’s no closer to knowing where Taekwoon or Hongbin are. He doesn’t even know who Toobu has locked away or what his plans for them are. He is a failure.

“Bounty hunter? Your armour looks a little clean for that.”

Sanghyuk’s been hearing that voice in his dreams for a year, so when he turns to find Taekwoon sitting cross legged on the floor meditating, the soft golden glow surrounding him, his knees go sort of weak. He’s glaring up at Sanghyuk, his robes are filthy and stained, and his hair is messy and long, but Sanghyuk doesn’t care. He’s here. He’s _here_. The stars must have aligned to bring them together, because he can’t quite believe it, and he takes a tentative step forward, still unsure that this isn’t just a hallucination that he’s having after being concussed just a bit too much. Taekwoon looks so real, though, so real and solid that he realises his heart is racing. But Taekwoon raises his hand and pushes, and Sanghyuk is slammed back against the bars, pinned there as he gets to his feet slowly. “Stay away,” Taekwoon warns, his eyes narrowed. “You may not be a bounty hunter, but that doesn’t mean I trust you. Who are you?”

“Is this a new policy of yours? Shoot first, ask questions later?” Sanghyuk blurts, although he knows Taekwoon won’t know who he is because of the way his helmet processes his voice.

That makes Taekwoon pause. “Why would you know what I’m like? Have we met before?”

“I don’t know. Do you make a habit of picking up strays, dumping them on strange planets, and never calling?” replies Sanghyuk. His tone is deliberately light and jovial lest he comes off bitter, which he is, a little bit. But he doesn’t want this to be marred by that. He’s still on cloud nine about Taekwoon being in front of him, so close he could reach out and touch him, feel his warmth—but instead of doing that he reaches up and pulls off his helmet, aware that his face is tender which means he probably has bruises all over it.

“Sanghyuk?” Taekwoon gasps, and drops his hand, releasing Sanghyuk, taking a step closer cautiously. “Is—what are you doing here?”

Sanghyuk doesn’t get a chance to reply before Taekwoon pulls him in for a hug, nestling his head in the crook of Sanghyuk’s shoulder, his arms wrapping around him. It’s somewhat awkward because of the bulky armour, but in that moment none of that matters—Taekwoon is in his arms, he’s holding Sanghyuk, and that’s all he has ever wanted. “I can’t believe I found you,” he mumbles, hugging Taekwoon back and trying to stop his heart from racing, trying to shove aside all his thoughts and just focus on this moment.

“What are you doing here?” Taekwoon asks again, suddenly back to stern and teacherly, stepping back, creating space between them. “I don’t understand. I called the Council. Surely they didn’t send you? And what happened to your face?”

By the time Sanghyuk has finished telling the whole sorry tale they’ve ended up on the floor, sitting just far enough apart that whenever Taekwoon shifts their shoulders brush. Even though he’s wearing his armour, it still sends a chill through him, as stupid as that is. Taekwoon is silent at the end before shifting so he can look Sanghyuk in the eyes, his face grim, although Sanghyuk thinks he sees a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “I don’t think I’ve met anyone as determined as you,” he murmurs. “Although I’m not sure whether to admire you or admonish you.”

“You should thank me.” Sanghyuk flops back onto the wall dramatically, running a hand through his hair. “You know how the Council is. They’d rather debate over the pros and cons over sending someone to get you than rather actually _do_ it. I couldn’t stand thinking you might be hurt, or…”

He stops himself there, because Taekwoon is looking at him with a funny expression on his face and he knows if he goes further he’s going to start talking about his feelings, and that’s a bad idea since he doesn’t even know what he feels about Taekwoon in the first place. There’s affection there, sure, and he’d even hesitantly go so far as to call it a crush—but he hasn’t forgotten that Taekwoon dropped him on Tython and flew away without another word, for a _year_. So he presses his lips in a thin line and plays with his helmet so he doesn’t have to look at the Jedi. “I was just worried. And it was an easy excuse to get off Tython.”

“Was it that bad?”

Sanghyuk shakes his head. “Not bad, no. Just dull. I don’t think the Council ever fully trusted me… They never gave me anything to do except be a glorified bodyguard, even though Satele took me under her wing. Say what you want about Tatooine, at least there was always something going on there.” He shrugs, feeling sort of small under Taekwoon’s gaze. “But who cares about that. How the hell did you get here? And where is Hongbin? Is he okay?”

It’s Taekwoon’s turn to look away, and Sanghyuk senses something there, some emotion he can’t quite grasp. It’s in the way he clenches and unclenches his fingers absentmindedly, like he can’t control himself. “We… got separated. I can feel that he is alive, at least, and not in too much pain… But I have no idea beyond that.”

 _Don’t ask,_ he warns himself, at the same time he opens his mouth and asks, “Is this to do with that Sith you were chasing? Jaehwan?”

“How do you know about that?” Taekwoon is suddenly alert again, his eyes boring into Sanghyuk, but he doesn’t look away this time.

“I have my ways. Being the Council’s errand boy for a year means you learn things,” he replies, jutting his chin up just a tad.

He never learnt much from the Council, actually. All his knowledge came from the confidential records he’d pored through when he’d stolen Master Orgus Din’s holonet password—and what they told him were things he already knew or had already deducted from eavesdropping: Taekwoon and Jaehwan were born on Alderaan, both the sons and heirs of wealthy houses. They had been discovered by the Order quite early, and had gone through training together. They were as close as brothers; together they fought in battles all over the galaxy during the War. The Council had high hopes for them, and they were touted to become the Order’s poster boys, advocating everything it stood for, until Jaehwan fell to the dark side not long after they both became Knights. There wasn’t much data on why he fell, or who his new Master was, only that he took an apprentice (the Sith term for Padawan) not long afterwards. The Council dispatched Taekwoon on a mission to find Jaehwan and either bring him back to the light or eliminate him. They agreed that if Taekwoon could do this than he could be trusted, but not until then; the loss of someone so close to him apparently made him more likely to fall to the dark side himself, and the Council did not want to lose _two_ of their best and brightest. Sanghyuk doesn’t know if Taekwoon knows he is being played, but he’s probably figured it out by now. It’s not hard to see.

“I suppose so,” Taekwoon replies, rubbing his eyes. “Yes, it is to do with Jaehwan, in a roundabout way. I was told that his apprentice, Hakyeon, was here on business, and attempted to ambush him. But _we_ were ambushed… There were too many of them. I couldn’t do anything except watch as Hakyeon dragged Hongbin away.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. I stopped trying to figure out Jaehwan’s motivations for doing anything a long time ago. He is an enigma to me now.”

There’s sadness in his words, Sanghyuk can taste it; it’s bitter and acrid and it hurts him a little bit to see. The clinical words of the Council’s archives can’t really put into perspective how much it must have torn Taekwoon apart to lose his best friend to evil, and how much he must still be hurting today. It’s all very well and good for the Jedi to preach disconnection and unconditional love, but that’s easier said than done. He doesn’t even want to think of how hypocritical Satele can be sometimes, especially as he knows her secrets; but that’s for him to unpack some other time. Right now all he can do is be there for Taekwoon, so he yanks off his glove and reaches out to touch him on the shoulder, intending the touch to be comforting. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, resisting the urge to shift even closer, to hug Taekwoon again. “At least there’s a silver lining. He didn’t bank on me turning up.”

Taekwoon snorts softly. “That is true. I don’t think anyone has banked on you before, Sanghyuk. Perhaps it’s time we started.”

“Nice to see someone’s on my side,” he shoots back cheerfully, using Taekwoon’s shoulder as a springboard to stand up, stretching and wincing as a flare of pain shoots through his head. “But we actually need to, you know, escape. And I don’t know how we’re going to do that when I don’t even have my blasters. My vibroknife is useless here.”

“What vibroknife?” Taekwoon barks, his eyes snapping open as he is suddenly alert.

“This one,” Sanghyuk tells him, reaching down and fishing in his boot for the vibroknife he always keeps there. It’s like his blasters; he just doesn’t feel safe unless he’s got a weapon on him, and concealing one is like second nature to him after so long on Tatooine. Sure enough, his fingers close around the handle, and he pulls the knife out and flicks it on, the motor inside whirring away, vibrating the blade faster than the eye can see. “Why? It’s useless in here. It’s not like it can cut through iron bars.”

In one smooth, rapid movement, Taekwoon rises from where he was sitting against the wall and snatches the knife from Sanghyuk’s outstretched fingers. It looks kind of weird there as he weighs it in his hands; the weapon of a Jedi has always been and will always be the lightsaber, and he’s been picturing Taekwoon with them for too long to accept the way he twirls the knife in his hand expertly. Before he can even protest, Taekwoon whirls and stabs the knife through the lock. There’s a bang, and Sanghyuk takes a step back, but Taekwoon doesn’t—instead he stretches out both of his hands and _pushes_ , and, without him even laying a finger on the handle the knife goes flying clean through the lock and across the hallway, where it embeds itself in the wall, wobbling furiously.

“Maybe not bars, but the lock…” Taekwoon looks back over his shoulder and winks at Sanghyuk before pushing the gate. It opens easily, with no resistance, and Sanghyuk just stares. “Come on.”

There’s not much opportunity for the Jedi to use the Force like that on Tython, so he shoves his helmet on and staggers after Taekwoon dazedly, only just remembering to retrieve his knife from the wall. It’s not like he didn’t know Taekwoon is good at what he does, but to see him in action is a whole different story. “Where are we going?” he calls as he hurries after Taekwoon, his boots splashing in the puddles. The visor on his helmet tells him his shields are nearly back to full strength.

“We’re going to find Hongbin,” Taekwoon says over his shoulder. “And then we’re going to get off this godforsaken planet.”

He breaks into a jog, and Sanghyuk follows, not really having a choice even though his head is pounding horribly with every step he takes. “Actually, it’s a moon—” he starts, before Taekwoon rounds a corner and bumps straight into Risha, with T7 by her side.

“Don’t hurt me!” she cries, falling down and scrambling backwards like she’s terrified that Taekwoon actually will. “Please don’t hurt me.”

T7 beeps happily at the sight of them, and wheels himself around Risha and straight to Sanghyuk’s side. Taekwoon is staring down at the girl, an unidentifiable expression on his face, but Sanghyuk steps forward and helps her up. “Risha put me in with you,” he says to Taekwoon. “She’s a slave. She hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“No,” Taekwoon says quietly, pity written all over his face. “She hasn’t.”

Without saying another word, he steps up to Risha—who flinches, which makes Sanghyuk wonder what Toobu has been telling her about who Jedi are and what they do—and puts his hands on her shock collar. Sanghyuk takes a step forward, his eyes wide, but under Taekwoon’s skilled fingers the collar makes a few squeaking noises before he yanks it away from her neck and flings it away. There are certain protocols that make a shock collar nearly impossible to take off, and Sanghyuk had never really figured them out—attempting to do so usually results in a shock at maximum strength for the wearer. Risha claps a hand to her bare neck and stares up at Taekwoon, her mouth open like she can’t quite believe what he’s just done. Neither can Sanghyuk, and they both just stand there gaping at him.

“Go,” he tells her, figuring Taekwoon isn’t going to tell her what to do because he doesn’t know. But he does. “Sneak offworld. Change your name, cut your hair. Escape and don’t come back, ever.”

This time when she looks at him he can read the understanding there on her face. She knows what it’s like to be free, now, just like him, and knows that once upon a time he was standing where she was, with newfound freedom and no idea what to do with it. He’d never managed to make it off Tatooine, but he knows she’ll somehow find a way, and before he can say anything more she whirls and sprints away, her braids streaming out behind her.

He can feel Taekwoon’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t say anything as they keep moving, following in her tracks. That’s a conversation for another day, another time, and right now they have to concentrate on getting out alive.


	3. Chapter 3

_“Tell me.”_

The Sith clenches his fist, and Sanghyuk contorts, his fingers scrabbling at his throat helplessly, trying desperately to breathe. But there’s no hand around his neck, no noose tightening—this is all the Sith’s doing, and the use of such dark power takes his breath away. Literally.

 _“I won’t tell you anything, Sith,”_ Sanghyuk rasps—but it’s not his voice speaking, and when the Sith releases his hold and he falls to the ground, he sees that his hands are not his own, and he’s wearing the robes of a Jedi.

 _“You will break, in time,”_ the Sith replies evenly, grabbing Sanghyuk by the throat and lifting him up easily. The man is pretty, in a lithe, graceful way, and he would be gorgeous if it wasn’t his eyes, which are glowing a fierce yellow-orange. _“You will tell your Master’s secrets.”_

Sanghyuk narrows his eyes, trying to fight through the way his vision is starting to go black at the edges, and splays his hand on the man’s chest and pushes. They’re forced apart, and Sanghyuk scrambles to his feet. He doesn’t have his lightsaber, which means he’s severely limited in terms of weapons—he can use the Force, to a certain extent, but his telekinesis was never as good as his lightsaber combat, and he knows he’s outranked by this Sith. _“Don’t you see your Master is using you?”_ he growls, panting, watching as the Sith staggers to his feet as well, scowling. _“You’re being played.”_

 _“And you’re not, Padawan Hongbin?”_ the Sith quips, and raises his hand—

Sanghyuk wakes shuddering and gasping for air, clawing at his own throat in a sleepy desperation before he realises he can breathe, that he’s not being choked, that he can _breathe_ —but then Taekwoon rushes in and it’s like all the air is gone again, because he apparently sleeps shirtless and that’s nearly too much for Sanghyuk to cope with. “What did you see? What is it?” Taekwoon says, sitting on the side of the bed and touching him on the face, the shoulder.

“I was Hongbin… and a Sith was choking me. With the Force,” he explains, gesturing to his throat and pushing his hair back from his face. He still feels kind of lightheaded, even though he can breathe perfectly fine. “I don’t know if that was real, or in my head… And I don’t know if it was the future, or the past, or… I don’t know.”

For the first time Sanghyuk looks at Taekwoon, _properly_ looks at him, and he forgets how to breathe for a second. Getting off the pleasure barge and finding their weapons was relatively simple, really, and Taekwoon only had to Force persuade one of the guards to let them past unseen (Sanghyuk had given up on ever getting the ship back). They’d ended up back at a safehouse in a completely different district that Taekwoon explained belonged to the Jedi in case of situations like this—they had multiple on nearly every inhabited planet on the galaxy; little boltholes for wounded and exhausted Jedi to escape to. It’s just a tiny little apartment in one of the millions of anonymous apartment blocks, but it’s clean and safe and it has two beds. Sanghyuk had passed out the moment he’d taken off his armour, but Taekwoon had apparently had enough time to have a shower, because now his hair is hanging loose around his face in a direct contrast to the half-up, half-down style he had before. Sanghyuk dares to let his eyes drift lower, over the dips and hollows of Taekwoon’s chest, his muscles, the strip of hair on his belly leading downwards… _Woah_. Bad idea, because when he looks back up to meet Taekwoon’s eyes, he’s pretty sure his pupils are dilated and he probably looks crazy.

There’s a moment of silence where Taekwoon just _looks_ at him, and his gaze is so soft and heavy that Sanghyuk doesn’t know what to do with it; there are no words needed, not when Taekwoon can look at him like this. He doesn’t know what the older man is trying to say, but he doesn’t really care. He could honestly stay like this forever, and he doesn’t even realise he’s swaying closer until Taekwoon shifts back, minutely, and he drops his head to look at his hands, blushing.

“I think you’re more Force-sensitive than we originally thought. That sounds like a vision, to me.” Sanghyuk sees his fingers twitch. “Which doesn’t bode well for Hongbin. But for the moment we both need to rest and heal, so try and get back to sleep.”

“You sound just like Satele,” Sanghyuk says wryly.

Taekwoon looks up at him at that, and Sanghyuk has to resist the urge to brush the hair out of his eyes, to caress his face. “Did she have reason to say that to you often?”

Sanghyuk thinks of his nightmares, of a Sith standing over him, lightning arcing between his fingers. He thinks of the clash of lightsabers, of two purple against one red. He thinks of the awful, crushing dread he used to feel, the terrible feeling that something bad was going to happen. He thinks of all those times Satele heard him screaming and rushed in to quiet him, and he thinks of all those times he had sobbed quietly into his pillow instead. “No,” he says, and offers Taekwoon a weak smile. “Goodnight, Taekwoon.”

He tosses and turns after that, unable to get back to sleep—and when he does, he doesn’t dream of anything at all.

//

“Good morning,” Taekwoon mumbles around a mouthful of toast when Sanghyuk wanders sleepily into the kitchen the next morning. “Did you get back to sleep?”

“Yeah,” he replies, trying to ignore how gorgeous Taekwoon looks with the sunlight poring over him, illuminating his hair and making him look angelic. He slides onto a chair smoothly and leans over to snag a piece of Taekwoon’s toast, dodging a slap on the wrist. “What’s our game plan? How are we going to find Hongbin?”

Taekwoon takes a seat opposite him and leans back in his chair, his long body stretching—Sanghyuk can see how his muscles ripple under the fabric of his shirt as it strains, and nearly chokes on the toast. “I… don’t know. The bond we have… I can see where he is, but I don’t know how to get there. There’s no one I can trust on this godforsaken planet.”

“Moon,” Sanghyuk reminds him absentmindedly, taking another bite of the toast and chewing. “Between us surely there’s _someone_ who we can rely on. This place is so seedy I’m sure there will be someone willing to help us out for the right price.”

Those words trigger some memory, distant and buried, but he’s still not quite right after blacking out yesterday and the words remain swimming in his vision, close but not close enough. Something about Tatooine… A ship… Blasters? It makes no sense at all, and he shakes his head when he realises Taekwoon has been talking to him the entire time: “...and the wanted posters will be everywhere. Toobu is known for holding grudges. That’s going to make it even harder to get around.”

“Wait, you’re not sending me back to the Council?” he asks, finishing off the rest of the toast and leaning back in his chair to raise an eyebrow at Taekwoon.

Taekwoon dips his head, and Sanghyuk can’t tell if it’s shyness or something else, but all he can see from here is the crown of Taekwoon’s head, the way his hair drapes over his face. “No. I figure two hands are better than none. Three, with T7. I will need every resource I have to get Hongbin back.”

It’s a clinical, Jedi-like way of putting it, but Sanghyuk understands what he means. He also can hear the weight of Taekwoon’s guilt on his words, and sort of understands that too. As Hongbin’s Master, Taekwoon has a responsibility to keep him safe, even though their profession kind of lends itself to danger. Now that Hongbin is in the clutches of his literal mortal enemy, it’s very easy to see that this is weighing on him heavier than any burden Sanghyuk has ever had. When he closes his eyes, now, all he can see is Hongbin—the green of his lightsaber bouncing off his face; the way he’d laughed so hard at Sanghyuk swearing at the Council he’d actually cried; the way he’d looked as he’d flown away, the last time Sanghyuk had seen him, his face unreadable… And writhing on the ground, being choked as a Sith stands over him.

“T7, do me a favour,” he calls, getting up from the table abruptly and starting to pace. Something has triggered another memory to the forefront of his mind, but the more he thinks about it the more unattainable it seems to be. Perhaps this is the first sign of insanity. “Can you search the holonet for a ship called _Valkyrie?_ It’s a corvette class. ”

T7, who had been sitting silently in the corner, wheels over to the computer terminal in the wall and plugs himself in, but Taekwoon’s head shoots up at that, and when he looks at Sanghyuk he can sense that he is somewhere very far away. “Valkyrie… The chooser of the slain.”

Sanghyuk stares at him for a second before looking away and shivering. “God, the Force is creepy sometimes,” he mutters under his breath. To T7, he says, “Bring up what you’ve found on the terminal.”

He’s not sure where the name of the ship came from, only that he knows that it will help him and Taekwoon find Hongbin. Maybe that’s the Force doing its weird thing, or maybe it’s just his fractured memories, but in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter as long as it leads them to where they need to go. Coming to a stop in front of the terminal, he scans the results, clicking on the first link—which turns out to be a basic registration page, complete with picture.

“Oh, shit,” he breathes. “I remember.”

“What? Whose ship is it?” Taekwoon mutters, getting up from the table and moving around to peer over Sanghyuk’s shoulder.

Sanghyuk doesn’t reply. He doesn’t have to. Instead, he enlarges the picture and stares at the ship—the same ship he’d first seen a holo of, back on Tatooine, and the same ship that he’d been sucked inside while trying to leave the damn place. He feels when Taekwoon realises, too, because he inhales sharply.

 _See you later, sand-rat,_ Wonshik had said as he waved a cheery goodbye. Shit. Sanghyuk didn’t think he’d mean it _literally_.

//

After a little bit of research—during which Sanghyuk found out that Wonshik seems to use Nar Shaddaa as a sort of base, which makes sense considering the seediness and depravity of the place—Taekwoon agrees to contact him, which is surprisingly easier than he thought it would be. All they have to do is stand in front of the holo terminal, Sanghyuk wearing his armour and Taekwoon pulling the hood of his robe down to cover his eyes, and sound vague and rather menacing. Wonshik seems a little skeptical that the two of them need his help, especially since Sanghyuk looks like a bounty hunter anyway, but he agrees to meet them that evening in a cantina a few sectors over.

“Are you sure he will help us?” Taekwoon mutters the moment the call is terminated, ripping off his hood and running a hand through his hair.

Sanghyuk forgets how to form words for a second, because Taekwoon looks so damn gorgeous his brain starts to slowly shut down. “Um, yeah. Um, he will. He has to. I won’t give him any choice.”

Taekwoon narrows his eyes at that, but doesn’t say anything, which isn’t what Sanghyuk was expecting; he thought Taekwoon was going to tell him off for even alluding to using coercion on Wonshik. But it’s more than that. Wonshik humiliated him, back on Taekwoon’s ship a year ago, and Sanghyuk’s not the type to let that sort of thing slide by easily.

They spend the rest of that time in their respective rooms. Sanghyuk takes a quick power nap, figuring he needs all the help he can get considering when he’d had a shower he’d noticed that he had bruises mottled over every part of his body from his beating by Toobu, and then when he wakes he logs onto the holonet and plays some games for a bit. It’s partly to while away time, and partly to distract himself from going out there and trying to make conversation with Taekwoon. Part of him is still trying to talk the other part of himself out of the stupid crush he’s got; it’s idiotic, in every sense of the word. Taekwoon might not swing that way. Hell, even if he does, he’s a _Jedi_. Their Code strictly prohibits them from romantic relationships _(not that seems to stop some people on the Council,_ the devil on his shoulder whispers to him), preaching unconditional love instead. Forming attachments is said to be detrimental for a Jedi, because if they do begin to prioritise one individual above their Code, their ability to be the protectors of the galaxy is limited. Sanghyuk understands it in theory, but he doesn’t subscribe to it in practice. All the Jedi he’s ever met seem so stunted, never doing anything for fun—never laughing or drinking or playing games or doing ordinary things like falling in love. He understands that it’s a pretty stressful time for the Order, considering the fragile peace that’s lasted for nine years is beginning to show signs of cracking. But would it really kill the Jedi to _live_ a little?

“Sanghyuk?” Taekwoon says, sticking his head around Sanghyuk’s door. “May I interrupt?”

“Nothing to interrupt,” he replies easily, closing the game he’s timed out of because he was sitting staring blankly into space, lost in his thoughts. “What’s up? Is it time to go yet?”

Taekwoon takes a step into the room, and Sanghyuk notices he looks distinctly uncomfortable, and has trouble meeting his eyes. “No, not quite yet… But I wanted to give you something.”

Woah, okay. That’s quite possibly the last thing he expected. He’d almost been preparing himself for a lecture on how they weren’t to use more force than necessary with Wonshik, but sure enough, Taekwoon brandishes a small box, wrapped plainly, with a pretty purple ribbon the exact colour of his lightsaber blades.

Sanghyuk stares at it for a moment before leaning back in his chair and interlacing his fingers behind his head. It’s cruel of him, but he sort of enjoys watching Taekwoon squirm. “Is this for my birthday? You missed that, by the way, it was three months ago. You didn’t call. Or, oh, wait—is this a _guilt_ present?”

“Do you want it or not?” Taekwoon replies quietly, giving the box a little shake, not rising to Sanghyuk’s bait.

One of these days he’ll get an answer out of Taekwoon as to why he never called or visited, not once. Maybe he shouldn’t even feel he was owed that; he was nothing, just a sand-rat, just a blip on Taekwoon’s life—but he doesn’t feel like Taekwoon thinks about him that way at all. No, there’s something telling him that there’s more to this than meets the eye, but he can’t figure it out yet. Instead of protesting further, he gets up out of his seat and takes the box, tugging at the ribbon and tearing at the paper impatiently. When he pulls open the lid of the box he sees two beautiful blue crystals nestling there, twinkling and sparkling underneath the lights. When he touches a finger to one of them, he feels it hum curiously underneath his finger, and looks up at Taekwoon, his eyebrow raised. “Lightsaber crystals? I hate to break it to you, but the Council didn’t change their minds about training me. I don’t have a lightsaber.”

“Good.” Taekwoon grabs one of Sanghyuk’s blasters from its holster and expertly deconstructs it before Sanghyuk can even say anything. “You’d make a terrible Jedi.”

“Oh, gee, thanks,” he replies sarcastically, watching as Taekwoon pulls out the power pack and gas chamber of his blaster, setting them down on the table nearby. What remains in his hands is the core components of his precious blaster, the same blaster he’d stolen from his last Master, the same blaster that had ensured his freedom. The other he’d picked up a few years later, but it doesn’t hold quite the same sentimental value as this one. Taekwoon plucks one of the crystals from the box in Sanghyuk’s hands and, with a few precise movements, jams the crystal in front of the actuating module. “That’s not going to work, you know.”

Taekwoon looks up at Sanghyuk and grins, and Sanghyuk swears his heart stops in his chest. “Give me some credit. I do have _some_ idea of what I’m doing.”

He doesn’t even have the heart to come up with a smartass reply, not after that smile has knocked him for six, so he just watches as Taekwoon puts his blaster back together and hands it back to him. It doesn’t really feel any different in his hand, like he’d expected it to; he’d sort of thought it would hum, like the crystal did when he touched it. But it acts the same until raises it and squeezes the trigger, aiming at the wall, and instead of the green bolt that he’s used to—a byproduct of the kind of gas he uses —a blue bolt shoots out and he blinks, startled. Now that’s new. He’s never heard of using lightsaber crystals in blasters, mainly because the crystals themselves are very hard to come by. Holstering his blaster, he wraps his fingers around the other crystal, feeling the hum spread through his whole body.

“Okay,” he breathes, feeling really weirdly alive. The Force? No, the Force doesn’t make you feel invincible—or at least it’s not meant to, if everything he’s read is any indication. “I concede. You do know what you’re doing. With this, at least.”

Taekwoon says nothing, just watches him with a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. This time when he steps forward, it’s to pry Sanghyuk’s fingers away from the crystal, which he holds up in the air between them. “I mined these on Ilum myself, back when I was a Padawan… I must have been sixteen or so. That’s the year the Treaty was signed.”

“You remember it?” Sanghyuk breathes, emboldened by how intimate this is and taking the opportunity to wind their fingers together, knowing it feels right. “I was only eleven.”

They were both born into a Galaxy ripped apart by turmoil—by the time Sanghyuk was born, the Great Galactic War had been raging for seventeen years. Not that it really mattered, in the grand scheme of things—Tatooine held little strategic value, so life was relatively peaceful. Much of his early childhood was spent dodging Imperial patrols until one day, when he was eleven, it all just stopped, and he never saw another Imperial soldier again. He hadn’t known what it meant until years later—the Empire had launched a devastating attack on the capital of the Republic, Coruscant, crippling them so much they had been forced to sign a treaty splitting the galaxy in two. Tatooine had fallen on the Republic side of the line, and that was that. He can’t imagine what it would be like to have been a Padawan in the thick of all that War, all that death and bloodshed. He doesn’t even realise that Taekwoon is staring at him over the crystal until he blinks back to himself.

“They needed all the help they could get, so they sent us to the front lines as often as they could, even though we were only Padawans. Jaehwan and I, we cut our teeth on battles all over the Galaxy. We were so lucky to not be on Coruscant on the day of the sacking… But we’d both been sent to Ilum to farm our crystals. It was the first time we were sent on a solo mission.” Taekwoon smiles, but it’s a desperately sad sort of smile. “Our Masters were on Coruscant that day.”

Sanghyuk’s heart breaks at the thought of that, and he clenches their fingers together. Slowly, dreamily, he reaches up and tucks a stray lock of hair behind Taekwoon’s ear, resting his hand on the older man’s face, doing what he’s wanted to do for so long. It’s a touch of blatant, shameless affection, but he knows he’s gone way too far to turn back now. The amount of loss Taekwoon has had in his life is mind-boggling to comprehend, and Sanghyuk hurts desperately for him. He doesn’t care that he might be throwing it all away by showing Taekwoon what he’s wanted to do for days, no, for a year, but he can’t bring himself to care. “Taekwoon,” he breathes, quietly, his heart breaking over and over for Taekwoon, for his nameless Master, for Jaehwan and Hongbin and Hakyeon and, worst of all, for himself, because what he does next is unforgivable.

The moment their lips meet Taekwoon kisses him back, his arms wrapping around Sanghyuk’s waist and pulling him closer so they stumble back against the wall, the crystal clattering to the ground somewhere at their feet. Sanghyuk’s got his fingers wound through Taekwoon’s hair, and he has to stop himself from moaning as the older man’s tongue traces a delicate line along his bottom lip because yes, _yes!_ this is all he’s wanted, this is all he wants, and Taekwoon is grabbing at him, deepening the kiss, grinding against Sanghyuk—there’s nothing but heat between them, and all he can feel is his own heart pounding faster than it’s ever pounded before, and all he wants is Taekwoon. Until Taekwoon splays a hand on his chest and pushes him clean against the wall on the other side of the room, pinning him there, the both of them panting heavily as they regard each other with distance between them.

“Do _not_ do that again,” Taekwoon snarls, and for the first time he actually sounds angry.

Before Sanghyuk can protest, or point out that Taekwoon looked pretty into it from where he’s standing, he whirls around and storms out of the room and the force holding Sanghyuk up dissipates. He falls to his knees and stares after Taekwoon, his pulse thudding in his ears, his heart sinking down to his stomach. Of all the stupid, stupid things he’s done, this might actually be the worst. The one good thing he had going for him, and he has fucked it up totally.

The crystal glints at him from the floor, and he closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at it.


	4. Chapter 4

_The first shot was the hardest._

_That’s what his first Master had told him, the kind one who hadn’t beaten him or used the shock collar at all—the one who owned his mother._

_The first shot was the hardest, but all the ones after that were easy._

_Sanghyuk thinks that his old Master was lying. He will never get used to this, not ever, not as long as he lives. The resistance of the trigger as he squeezes it, his eyes scrunched shut; the way the blaster bucks up in his hand, nearly hitting his face; the noise, not really a bang but a sort of_ pew _sound; but worst of all is the wheezing and gurgling noise above it all, the sound of death. His Master reaches out to him, but Sanghyuk squeezes the trigger again and again until the blaster recoils so much it flies out of his hands._

_The dust settles, and Sanghyuk stands over a corpse, a free man at just eleven years old._

_He scoops the blaster from the ground and runs, runs outside to where his Master kept his speeder, leaps on and guns the engine, heading towards town. His heart is racing and his vision is blurring—at first he thinks it’s because of the wind, and because he’s not wearing goggles, but it’s only when he hiccups that he realises he is crying, gasping for air and coughing up sand. What he’s done starts to sink in as he shakes terribly, the speeder veering all over the dunes. He knows what the penalty is for slaves who rebel. Branding, if the Imperials are in a good mood. Death penalty if they aren’t. His only chance is to get to Anchorhead, find a way to remove his collar, and disappear into the alleys and catacombs of an entirely different city. Except Anchorhead is half a day’s ride from Mos Espa, and the sun is already beginning to set. He can’t survive in the desert for long by himself. He learnt that the hard way a year ago, when he’d tried to escape. His Master had found him collapsed just a few miles into the desert. He had given Sanghyuk just enough water to allow him to walk home and had then beat him so savagely he couldn’t walk for a week. But it’s not like he has any choice—it’s the desert or risk the Imperials._

_He twists the throttle and bites down a sob, the knowledge that he has nothing except this speeder, the clothes he has on his back, and the blaster that had fired the fatal shot finally setting in. He is completely alone in the world._

//

The shuttle ride to the cantina is uncomfortable. So is the long trek through Nar Shaddaa’s seemingly endless corridors. In fact, every aspect of the journey, since Taekwoon roused Sanghyuk from sleep, has been extremely unpleasant. Sanghyuk is torn between wanting to kiss Taekwoon again—because, if anything, their kiss has just cemented and intensified everything he was feeling—and punching him in the face. Attachments are bad, he gets that. But he doesn’t expect to be put first over the great battle for good and evil. He’s not sure what to do to try and get that point across, though, because Taekwoon won’t even look at him in the eyes. He’s traded in his brown robe for a black one, more befitting for a Sith, and the contrast between the black fabric and his skin is striking. Sanghyuk himself looks just like any other Mandalorian, which is also befitting for what he is pretending to be. Only T7, following after them doggedly, is just the same as he always was—although his gold-coloured paint is starting to look a little worn, and Sanghyuk makes a mental note to tell him to go and get painted once he gets back to Tython.

They make it to the cantina with no issues, and Sanghyuk expects them to draw some odd looks and attention—but he isn’t the only bounty hunter in the cantina, and to his surprise, Taekwoon isn’t the only ‘Sith’. He feels the older man stiffen beside him and has to resist the urge to put his hands on his blasters, his safety blankets. They head over to the bar and Sanghyuk orders them drinks, pulling off his helmet to down his in one go and tugging it back on quickly.

“Can they sense you?” he mutters.

Taekwoon shakes his head, almost imperceptibly. “Not like this, no. There are so many Force users around that I’m just background noise. If things come to blows, though…”

Sanghyuk reads the warning that’s written there: if things come to blows and he has to use his lightsabers, they’ll be exposed, and then they’ll be one Jedi and one ordinary human against ten-odd Sith. _So play nice,_ Taekwoon is saying, which makes him grit his teeth. The last thing he wants to do right now is play nice with anyone, least of all Wonshik—an easy scapegoat for his frustration. “Okay. Think evil thoughts. Darkness, death, all that jazz.” He pauses for a moment before remembering the way Taekwoon had shoved him away, and forges ahead anyway. “Think of our kiss. That seemed to get you pretty angry.”

Taekwoon chokes on his drink, and Sanghyuk has to stifle laughter. He half expects a rebuke, for Taekwoon to dump his drink on Sanghyuk’s head using the Force, but instead he hunches his shoulders and says nothing, practically disappearing amongst the swaths of black fabric. Sanghyuk shrugs and turns around so he’s facing outward, leaning on the bar, allowing himself the small luxury of people-watching. The Sith tend to stick together in twos or, alternatively, not group up with anyone at all. There’s a few Imperial officers, too, but they’re all in a group in the corner of the room playing some card game. He perks up at that. He hasn’t had a chance to play sabacc since he left Tatooine—gambling is yet another pleasure the Jedi aren’t allowed to indulge in—and perhaps playing a game or two would ease his nerves. Before he can make a move, however, someone familiar walks in the door. Someone who he would recognise from a mile away. Someone who makes his trigger finger itch. Taekwoon must sense it too, because he turns, and together they watch as Wonshik spots them and crosses the floor leisurely. Interestingly, for where they are, he’s completely unarmed, his blaster nowhere to be seen—and his hair, instead of being blue, is a bright scarlet, making him look paler than usual.

“Evening, gentlemen,” he says, and he sounds _courteous_. Such a contrast to how he’s been with them before, but then, he’s trying to make money off them now. “I trust the journey wasn’t too troublesome. Shall we find a place a little more secluded to discuss business?”

“Lead the way,” Sanghyuk replies quickly, before Taekwoon can speak. The chances are low that Wonshik would remember him, but Taekwoon’s soft voice is distinctive, and they want to keep up their facade as long as possible.

Wonshik leads them through the cantina towards a set of small doors, set in a darker corner; not one person pays attention to them the entire time. Sanghyuk has sort of got used to the stares his armour attracts, but it’s nothing special here—no one bats an eyelid at his Mandalorian garb. Wonshik seems completely relaxed, walking with a swagger in his step and even whistling as he goes along, but Sanghyuk can feel the tension rolling off Taekwoon in waves. This is their only chance to get to Hongbin; without Wonshik’s knowledge and connections, they’re back at square one—on a foreign planet with no-one to question, nowhere to turn.

“Now, gentlemen,” Wonshik begins as he shuts the door behind them. They’re in a nondescript room furnished with a table and four chairs, and he sits himself down in one of the chairs and kicks his legs up onto the table nonchalantly. “What can I do for you?”

“We would like you to find someone for us,” Sanghyuk deadpans, not making a move to sit down. At his side, Taekwoon stirs listlessly.

Raising his eyebrows, Wonshik rocks back in his chair slightly. “Find them and kill them? I’m sure you know that’s my specialty.”

“No, just find them.”

“Alright. Who is it, then?”

There’s a pause, where Sanghyuk’s not really sure if Taekwoon is going to speak—but he doesn’t. “A Sith called Hakyeon. He is the apprentice of Lord Jaehwan,” he hedges, hoping that Jaehwan _is_ a Lord and not going by one of their idiotic Darth names. It’s not like Taekwoon has given him any information that might be useful.

Another long pause. Wonshik looks Sanghyuk up and down, looks Taekwoon up and down, and then puts his hands flat on the table, moving as if to get up. “No.”

Sanghyuk doesn’t really know how to reply to that, only that it gets his blood boiling. Wonshik is just as infuriating as ever, and he would be glad that some things never change if it didn’t enrage him so much. “ _No?_ I’m trying to hire you. It’s not very good business to turn down contracts.”

“For your information, Lord Hakyeon was a client of mine in the past. It’s personal policy not to take contracts out against previous clients. Bad for business, you see.” Wonshik smirks, and once again Sanghyuk is reminded of how stupidly dashing he looks when he does that. “And I won’t even get into the fact that this is very obviously some Sith spat that I don’t want to get involved in—” he gestures to Taekwoon, who, in his current garb, looks every _bit_ a Sith “—because I like being alive, and fucking with the Sith tends to come back to bite you on the ass. Now, if we’re done here, you’ll excuse me.”

Sanghyuk’s patience snaps. “Sorry,” he mutters under his breath to Taekwoon, knowing he’ll hear it, before moving forward to smoothly grab Wonshik by the collar and slam him back down into his seat. Before the bounty hunter can even move, Sanghyuk’s drawn one of his blasters and holds it underneath his chin, his finger not wavering from the trigger. “You might want to reconsider that personal policy, or your lifespan will be shortened faster than you expected.”

Scowling, Wonshik makes a move to shrug away, but Sanghyuk grabs him by the back of the neck and slams his head into the table—not hard enough to kill him, just hard enough to give him a huge headache. Wonshik’s forehead splits open, and the crimson of the blood trickling down his face makes Sanghyuk feel weirdly alive. “Don’t test me,” he growls.

“Alright,” Wonshik mutters, wiping at his forehead and grimacing at the blood. “I can be reasonable. Name your price.”

“Free,” Sanghyuk snarls, and slams Wonshik’s head into the table again. “Try again.”

Behind him, he hears a noise, but the bloodlust has set in now and his limbs are starting to feel weirdly tingly—a side effect of the adrenaline coursing through his veins. His field of vision is narrowed down to Wonshik, and how he’d got the upper hand back on Tatooine, and how he’d humiliated Sanghyuk on Taekwoon’s ship. Even now he thinks he can play Sanghyuk without even knowing who he is—does the man have no shame? Grinning madly underneath his helmet, he slams Wonshik’s head into the table again, ignoring the warning on his visor that indicates Wonshik is about to lose consciousness.

He’s just about to do it again when Wonshik, fast for how out of it he is, reaches into his boot for a vibroknife and comes up swinging. He doesn’t expect that, and takes a step back but stumbles and nearly falls—which sends him wheeling towards the blade of the knife. Wonshik’s gritting his teeth as he slashes at Sanghyuk, and he only just manages to dodge before raising his blaster and aiming at Wonshik’s head—

“Enough!” Taekwoon roars from behind him, and before he can move he’s flung across the room, pinned to the wall, unable to move. Taekwoon has shrugged off his black robe and has drawn both his bright purple lightsabers, and the expression on his face is absolutely chilling. If Sanghyuk didn’t know that they were on the same side he would be absolutely terrified, and he still sort of is. Standing there like that, his arms spread with a lightsaber in each hand, Sanghyuk thinks that Jaehwan—nor any Sith—is no match for him.

“I _knew_ it,” Wonshik coughs from next to Sanghyuk, stuck to the wall. “I fucking knew it.”

Taekwoon releases them, and the moment they both fall to the floor Wonshik reaches over, wraps his fingers around the edge of Sanghyuk’s helmet, and pulls it off before Sanghyuk can even move. Without the filter of his visor, the blood all over Wonshik’s face is more striking, and suddenly he feels sick. Did he really do that? “Good to see you again,” he says sarcastically, clambering to his feet and drawing his other blaster, pointing them both at Wonshik. “My offer still stands, by the way. Help us find Hakyeon.”

“I said _enough!”_ Taekwoon snaps, shouldering his way between them and raising his lightsabers to each of their necks. Sanghyuk’s blood runs cold. One wrong movement, one _sneeze_ , and his head will be neatly separated from his body. He knew Taekwoon could be… cold, but this is on another level entirely. “I will not stand here and abide this petty bickering while my Padawan is in danger. Help us, or don’t, but make a decision,” he addresses this last part to Wonshik.

“That’s not very Jedi-like of you,” Wonshik mutters, gesturing weakly to the lightsaber. “Mind putting that down?”

Wonshik is right. Jedi are not meant to be reactive and they certainly aren’t meant to let their emotions rule them, which Taekwoon is——Sanghyuk doesn’t have to use the Force to feel that. For a moment he think Taekwoon won’t, but then he ducks his head and retracts his lightsabers, hooking them back on his belt. “You are right, Wonshik. I apologise. None of our actions today have been fitting of the Jedi or the Republic. But I implore you, please help us.”

Narrowing his eyes, Sanghyuk follows Taekwoon’s example and lowers his blasters, although he hates himself for doing so. If Taekwoon had given him just a few more minutes, Wonshik could be showing them the way to Hakyeon right now—but no, diplomacy always rules with the Jedi.

Wonshik doesn’t say anything, just glares at both of them. “I promise that, if you don’t agree to help us, you will walk out of this room a free man and you will never see either of us again,” Taekwoon says.

“I won’t make that promise,” Sanghyuk replies immediately, turning from glaring at Wonshik to glare at Taekwoon. “You can’t make me.”

“Oh, for God’s _sake,_ ” Wonshik snaps back, shouldering past them to grab Taekwoon’s discarded robe to hold part of the sleeve to his forehead before sitting heavily in the chair. “What the hell is your problem, sand-rat? Are you still holding a grudge for Tatooine? Build a fucking bridge and get over it. There’s bigger things to worry about than shit that happened years ago.”

Sanghyuk is just about to give Wonshik a taste of what his own vibroknife can do when Taekwoon lays a hand on his arm, his fingers wrapping around his wrist in the little gap in his armour between his glove and gauntlet. The skin contact is unnerving, especially since the last time they touched Taekwoon had his hands running all up and down Sanghyuk’s back, but more unnerving is the serene, tranquil feelings that suddenly come over him. _Calm yourself, Sanghyuk,_ Taekwoon says to him, but he’s not saying a word out loud. _We will get nowhere like this. I understand you want to fight, but be patient. There will be a time to fight and this is not that time._

Despite himself, he feels his heart starting to slow down, the anger melting away. He knows it’s the Force, knows that Taekwoon is sharing a little bit of his Jedi tranquility with him, but it feels so soothing he doesn’t really care. Not to mention that Taekwoon is touching him again, is looking at him, and Sanghyuk knows that he’d bash a thousand heads into a thousand tables just to have that again. He then realises that, since Taekwoon has opened this conduit between them, he can probably read the desire in Sanghyuk’s head and blushes furiously, snatching his hand away and reaching for his helmet to jam it over his head so Taekwoon can’t see. It doesn’t really matter, though, because Sanghyuk can see the expression on _his_ face all too well—and Taekwoon looks soft, affection settling all over his features, and right now that’s way too much to deal with.

When he turns back to Wonshik, completely calm, he sees the bounty hunter looking between them with a smirk on his face. He’s clearly read the situation for what it is, and while before it would be enough to make Sanghyuk’s temper spike, now he just smirks back underneath his helmet. “You said your Padawan was in danger,” Wonshik starts, turning to look at Taekwoon. “What did you mean?”

Sanghyuk can read the indecision all over Taekwoon’s face—after all, what’s to stop Wonshik turning tail and running to the Sith once they’re done? But their desperation leaves them very little to turn, so with a slight grimace, Taekwoon tells him. “Hakyeon’s Master and I have… unfinished business. He’s taken my Padawan. I don’t know why, and if I’m frank, I have no idea where to start looking for him. Every moment that passes I worry that he is being hurt or tortured or worse...”

“I thought Jedi were meant to be emotionally stunted,” Wonshik murmurs under his breath, rubbing at his forehead and wincing. “Why can’t you just use your connections? You’re _Jedi_. Surely you know everyone.”

“One of the most powerful Hutts on the moon has put a price on our heads,” Sanghyuk mutters grimly. “Besides, it’s not like there are a lot of Jedi to go around. Not after the War. We can’t just waltz into cantinas and start asking if people have seen one particular Sith.”

“Fair point,” Wonshik admits, standing up and wincing. “Alright. I think I know where to get your Padawan. But we’ll leave tomorrow. I have to go back to the ship and fix up my head,” he finishes with a glare in Sanghyuk’s direction. “Meet here tomorrow at 11 am sharp.”

Sanghyuk unholsters one of his blasters and holds it loosely at Wonshik, shaking his head. “I don’t think so. I have a feeling that if we let you go to your ship we’ll never see you again. So you’ll come with us.”

The scowl on Wonshik’s face clues Sanghyuk into the fact that yes, that is indeed what he was planning, but he doesn’t fight as they walk out of the room, Sanghyuk with his blaster jabbed into the small of his back. In fact, he doesn’t say anything the whole ride back to their apartment—just sits angled away from them, staring stubbornly at the floor. When they get inside, he excuses himself to the bathroom almost immediately, leaving Sanghyuk and Taekwoon staring at each other awkwardly.

“That could have gone better,” Taekwoon mutters, throwing the black robe onto the sofa in the corner of the room. “A lot better, in fact.”

“I agree. If you’d just let me keep going, I would have broken him,” Sanghyuk replies, taking his helmet off and running a hand through his hair.

Taekwoon whirls around at that. “No, you would have _killed_ him. That’s not the kind of man I thought you were.”

“How the fuck do you know what kind of man I am?!” Sanghyuk growls, folding his arms over his chest. “You dropped me on a foreign planet where I knew no one and then never contacted me again. You contacted the Council alright, but not me. You _forgot_ about me. So you have no right to lecture me on what sort of man I may or may not be.” Aghast, Taekwoon takes a step back, but Sanghyuk is fully into his tirade now, letting out every bottled-up thought that he’s been carrying around since he last saw Taekwoon’s robe disappearing up the ramp of his ship. “And maybe I’m being stupid for _expecting_ you to call, but I think there was something between us. I don’t think I was imagining those touches and those glances, Taekwoon. And I think you got so scared of it you ran.”

There’s a beat of silence where Sanghyuk lets the words hang in the air between them before he turns so Taekwoon can’t see the tears welling up in his eyes. Why, of all people, did he have to fall for a _Jedi?_ The forbidden fruit might be the most tempting, but it’s also forbidden for a reason. Instead of letting the tears fall, he looks at the ceiling and blinks them away furiously, ripping off his gloves and digging his fingernails into his palm.

“You’re right.”

The words are a blow to Sanghyuk’s heart in the best kind of way, and it’s with a wobbly lip that he turns to look at Taekwoon, the vulnerability written all over his face.

“You are right. You weren’t imagining things. And you’re right that I’m scared. I shouldn’t have let it go that long without calling, and for that, I apologise. But, Sanghyuk… That’s not me. That’s not… I’m a Jedi. It’s forbidden for us to love.” He takes a step forward, his hand outstretched, but when Sanghyuk flinches back withdraws it quickly. “I… I can’t.”

“You can’t be anything but the perfect Jedi,” Sanghyuk sneers, taking his hurt and throwing it back in Taekwoon’s face. “Because if you falter even a little bit, you think you’ll fall, like Jaehwan did.” The shock flitters across Taekwoon’s face, almost too fast for him to see, but he catches it. “But you’re _not_ Jaehwan. It’s about time you started realising that.”

When Sanghyuk turns, he nearly trips over his own feet. It’s almost comical the way Wonshik is leaning against the wall in the hallway watching them, grinning widely at his own personal episode of _Jedi Drama_. Sanghyuk has to resist the urge to punch him in the face, and instead shoulders past him into the bathroom and slams the door behind him, his chest heaving. Of all the shitty days he’s had, this would have to be right up there on the list. He feels so overwhelmed and lost and small, like he’s eleven again, like he’s stuck back on Tatooine. Maybe he shouldn’t have left after all. Maybe this could have been avoided if he’d just stayed on that fucking planet and died the way he was supposed to, in a bar brawl gone wrong or an ambush by sand people. Life would be a lot less complicated, then.

He doesn’t even realise he’s crying until he looks down at his hands and sees that they’re wet.

//

_He takes a detour in the desert and dumps the speeder in the dunes, knowing that it’s the first thing they’ll look for when they come for him. From there he walks the rest of the way to Anchorhead, squinting at the horizon. His mother used to say she could feel it in her bones whenever there was a sandstorm coming, and he must have got her ability, because his stomach feels funny._

_Of course, that might just be a side effect of murder._

_By the time he traipses into Anchorhead, dawn is peeking over the horizon as the first of the two suns, Tatoo I, rises. The city is only just beginning to wake up, which makes it easy for him to steal away into the underbelly of the city—the catacombs, where no-one but the mad and the poor venture. Nearly every large city on Tatooine has them, remnants from before anyone knew how to build houses that ventilated heat properly—or so the holonet told him (he wasn’t allowed on it, of course, and he’d been beaten when his Master had caught him). Down here it is cool and damp, but most importantly, secluded._

_He kneels on the ground and feels all along his shock collar for the release, but doesn’t press it. He knows better than that. He’s tried it before, and it delivered such a nasty shock he nearly blacked out. There’s absolutely nothing down here that he could use to remove it… Or so he thinks, until he looks down at the blaster on the ground where he’d dropped it, now his sole possession. He has no idea how to use it apart from the basics: squeeze the trigger. But it’s a way to get his collar off, a way to shed the last remnant of his slavery, so with shaking hands he picks it up, noting how warm it feels. Is that because this is what he was always meant to do? Or is it just warm from the sand? He can’t tell, and slowly raises the blaster to the back of his neck, lining it up with the collar and pointing it towards the wall. If he misses, he will shoot himself in the neck, and he will die. If he doesn’t shoot, he’ll be trapped with this mark of ownership until he outgrows it and it falls off (or strangles him to death in the process). He doesn’t have a choice._

_Closing his eyes, he pulls the trigger and thinks of his mother._

_The collar falls to the ground, and he drops the blaster into the sand._


	5. Chapter 5

Wonshik corners him the moment he leaves the bathroom with his armour awkwardly gathered in his arms and a towel wrapped around his waist. “Where am I sleeping? This place only has two bedrooms,” he demands, before taking a step back and looking Sanghyuk up and down slowly. “Oh. Sorry.” He doesn’t sound sorry at all.

“Sleep on the floor for all I care,” Sanghyuk mutters, barging past him to stomp down the hall to his room. He dumps his armour on the desk, not bothering to sort it out, and is about to bend over to get his pyjamas when he realises Wonshik is standing in the doorway, staring. “Do you have to do that? Can’t you fuck off somewhere else?”

“Have you ever considered that that filthy mouth of yours is why you’re always getting into trouble?” Wonshik replies, meandering over to the desk and flopping into the chair, spinning around idly like a child.

“I don’t—” Sanghyuk begins, clutching his pyjamas to his chest, but Wonshik speaks over the top of him.

“Because, I mean, _really_. When I first met you were eighteen and starting fights in cantinas. And now you’re twenty and starting fights with Hutts. Is there a creature out there that you won’t brawl?”

It takes all of Sanghyuk’s self-control not to throw his pyjamas in Wonshik’s face—instead he sits heavily on the bed and tries to centre himself. It’s a simple meditation technique Satele taught him—to turn introspective, to close one’s eyes and relax totally, and to reach out and feel the living Force and be surrounded by it. The Force has always been slightly elusive; he has the raw talent but not the refined strength of the Jedi, so he only feels the Force weakly, can only skim its outer reaches. Right now, though, he can visualise it in his head, feel it swimming through his limbs; he can see, without even opening his eyes, that Taekwoon is in his bedroom meditating as well, although the Force is much stronger with him, and he almost hurts to look at. He hasn’t relied on this technique to calm himself for a long time, and perhaps that’s why he has been so quick to anger. When he opens his eyes, he smiles happily at Wonshik, his irritation gone. “I’ve never tried to fight Taekwoon, or Hongbin,” he says.

Wonshik looks at him for a moment, his eyes narrowed. “That’s some Jedi shit you just did. Who the hell taught you that? Are they grooming you to be one of them? Aren’t you too old?”

“I’m Force-sensitive, but I was too old to be trained when the Council met me. All it means is I get weird, vivid dreams, and I can do tricks like this.” Holding out his hand, he focuses his attention on his helmet, sitting on the desk next to Wonshik’s arm. Without too much effort, the helmet rises gently in the air and floats over to drop into Wonshik’s lap. He shrugs. “Nothing useful. I get too caught up in my emotions to use it in battle or whatever.” Not that making small objects float is a useful ability in battle anyway.

“I don’t think that’s a bad thing, though,” Wonshik retorts, staring at the helmet in his lap like it might bite him. “Jedi normally have sticks up their asses. I don’t think it’s healthy.” He cocks his head to the side and picks up the helmet, staring at the visor. “But I think there’s a balance to be found between the Jedi and… your anger issues.”

“You don’t need to tell me,” Sanghyuk glowers, running a hand through his hair exasperatedly. “I know too much about repression with the Jedi.”

He’s spent a year living with them; sometimes he envied the way they always seemed to be at peace no matter what was flung their way, but most of the time he was generally irritated that they weren’t allowed to _live_. After all, what’s a life without love? Emotions aren’t something to be quashed into nothing. They’re meant to be felt, and as long as they’re felt healthily, he sees no problem with that. Perhaps it’s more of a Sith mindset than a Jedi one, but he never quite understood the way the Jedi encouraged each other to be so… dead on the inside. Fear is healthy. Fear is what kept him alive all those years on Tatooine. No one likes being afraid, but it’s there for a reason.

Wonshik puts the helmet gently down on the desk and raises an eyebrow. “Uh-huh. I saw. Interesting dynamic you two have got there.”

“And suddenly I’m really tired,” Sanghyuk says, not even bothering to sound genuine, standing up and pointing at the door. “Goodnight, Wonshik.”

Obligingly, Wonshik goes, although not without another appreciative look at Sanghyuk’s body and a cheeky wink. The moment the door shuts behind him Sanghyuk flops back down onto the bed on his back and stares at the ceiling, which he’s programmed to show the world outside. As he stares up into the Nar Shaddaa sky, watching airspeeders go zooming past almost faster than his eye can see, he relishes the melancholy that washes over him. Feelings are not his enemy. He revels in them. He is alive in the basest, most instinctual way, and that’s all he needs.

//

He suits up the next morning sluggishly, noting that with all the scuffles he’s been in his armour has lost some of its shininess. Which is a good thing, he supposes. It makes him feel a little bit less like a fraud, a little bit more like he deserves to wear it.

By the time he makes his way to the kitchen, the other two are sitting at the table, eating breakfast like they’re all playing some sort of fucked up game of Happy Families rather than preparing to go on a suicide mission. Well, maybe not suicide for the other two—Wonshik will probably cut his losses and run, and Taekwoon can more than handle himself against a Sith. But Sanghyuk has only seen one once before, and he’d only escaped death because of sheer dumb luck. He suspects that won’t be the case this time, and knows he is terribly outmatched.

“Morning,” he says cheerfully, even though he’s still torn between wanting to kiss Taekwoon and wanting to punch him. “Save any for me?”

Wonshik grunts and slides a plate his way, which he just manages to stop from sailing off the edge of the table. It’s porridge, or something that’s like porridge, and some unidentifiable fruit. It doesn’t look particularly appetising, but he sits down and starts scoffing it anyway, knowing full well that this could be the last meal he ever eats. He deliberately keeps his eyes cast downward so he doesn’t have to look at Taekwoon, because the prickly awkwardness in the room from yesterday is most definitely still there.

It hits him when he gets up out of his seat to reach for the water jug on the middle of the table, and his world fades to black.

 _“TELL ME!”_ the Sith roars, grabbing Sanghyuk by the hair and yanking his head back painfully. _“How dare you defy me? Tell me what your Master’s plan is!”_

Sanghyuk can’t tell the Sith—Hakyeon, he realises, this must be Hakyeon—what he doesn’t know, but he still scowls at him even though his face is so swollen it hurts to move. _“He’s going to gut your Master like a fish,”_ he growls, feeling his anger wash over him.

 _“Good,”_ Hakyeon hisses, his eyes glowing a freakish yellow-orange as he pushes Sanghyuk away telekinetically. _“Use your anger. Strike me down.”_

 _“You know I won’t strike unless in self-defence, Sith,”_ Sanghyuk snarls back, trying to clamber onto his knees. Every part of his body aches horribly, and he knows he won’t be able to take much more of this. The room is grey and completely bare, save for the two of them. He has no means of escape. _“I am not weak like you. You couldn’t even convince your Master to free you, could you? He took your collar off, but you’re still his slave.”_

The roar that erupts Hakyeon is fueled with pure rage, nothing more, and Sanghyuk can feel the tremors of his fury rippling through the Force. The darkness surrounding Hakyeon swells as he backhands Sanghyuk, sending him clean across the room. When he slams into the ground he hears a sickening crunch, a stab of pain in his ribs, and his vision starts to go funny. _Taekwoon_ , he thinks, but it’s been so long—perhaps his Master isn’t coming for him at all. That thought proves more painful than the way Hakyeon picks him up with the Force and slams him back down into the ground. His vision explodes into stars, and all he can see when he closes his eyes is the dark side surrounding Hakyeon, the way his anger and rage and pain fuels it. _“Finish me,”_ he gasps, noting the awful rattle coming from his lungs. It’s getting kind of hard to breathe. He would do anything for his lightsaber right about now. _“Finish me and go back to your Master and tell him you killed me.”_ Even though his body is screaming at him, he rolls onto his front and pushes himself up so he’s kneeling in front of Hakyeon. _“But you could kill every Jedi in the universe and he would still not respect you. This changes nothing.”_

Hakyeon’s terrifying eyes are the last thing he sees as he floats backwards into darkness, into the comfort of the Force—

This time, when Sanghyuk comes to, it’s with Taekwoon’s hands cupping his face and Wonshik hovering nearby, worry etched onto his features. His head is pounding like it’s just been run over by a tank, and when he tries to sit up a wave of nausea overcomes him, and he gasps, clutching his stomach. This was, by far, the most vivid and horrifying of all the dreams he’s had so far—although by now he knows they aren’t just dreams, but rather the Force showing him the present… Or the future. He can’t really tell, and his head aches too much to try and figure it out.

“Jesus,” Wonshik breathes, the colour starting to return to his face. “If you wanted me to give you the kiss of life, you should have just said. What the hell was that?”

“A Force vision,” Taekwoon replies, cradling Sanghyuk’s head and helping him sit up, the touch gentle, comforting.

He doesn’t press to find out what Sanghyuk saw, just waits, lacing their fingers together and squeezing gently. Through the pounding in his head, the details of his vision start to sink in, and so does the panic—he has no idea if what he saw was happening right now, or will happen in the future. Not for the first time he wishes he wasn’t Force sensitive and he doesn’t have to deal with this shit; his life would be a lot easier.

“I saw… Hongbin,” he begins, closing his eyes and clutching Taekwoon’s hand. “He wasn’t telling Hakyeon anything. Hakyeon was… violent. Hongbin was taunting him.” He opens his eyes and stares into Taekwoon’s. “Hakyeon is a slave. Jaehwan is his Master _literally_.”

For a second he reads surprise on Taekwoon’s face, but then it’s gone again; the shutters are closed, and he is nothing but the businesslike Jedi. The businesslike Jedi who is holding onto Sanghyuk’s hand gently, his thumb tracing lines along Sanghyuk’s hand. Sometimes he can’t even tell who the real Taekwoon is. “I thought so,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “The Force is… clouded. Hongbin is… I can’t _see_ properly. I don’t like it.”

Sanghyuk reaches to feel for the Force, too, but all he can feel is Taekwoon; he doesn’t have the skill to be able to sense any further than that. Taekwoon is resigned, calm, but there’s apprehension there too. Sanghyuk, on the other hand, is terribly afraid, and closes his eyes as Hakyeon reaches out to backhand him again in his head. He doesn’t have a chance against any Sith, he knows that now—if this is what an _apprentice_ is like, he doesn’t even want to know what fighting Jaehwan would be like.

“What the fuck are you two waiting for?” Wonshik cries exasperatedly, grabbing Sanghyuk’s other hand and pulling him upright, so they end up entangled. “We need to go, like, now. I don’t know much about your Force stuff but if it’s ‘clouded’,” he gestures in the air grandly while rolling his eyes, “then that’s not a good sign. Come _on.”_

Leaning against the kitchen bench, Sanghyuk retreats into himself, not even taking strength from the Force but just shutting out the outside world entirely. The other two bustle around, getting ready and gearing up for walking into hell, but it’s all he can do to clutch onto the marble and stay present. He is certain he is going to die today at the hands of a Sith. Normally he wouldn’t be afraid of death—he’s stared it in the face too many times to give up now, has fought tooth and nail to get where he is today—but the Sith’s yellow eyes are stuck in his head, and he can’t shake it.

Dazedly, he holds onto Wonshik’s hand as they all go outside to where an airspeeder is waiting—Wonshik’s, he guesses. He slips into the backseat and stares at the back of Taekwoon’s head as they take off, not looking at the world around them, not caring anymore.

“Is he alright?” he hears Wonshik ask quietly, and thinks, _since when did you care?_

Taekwoon is silent for a beat. “He will be. He’s in shock.”

Shock. Ha. He closes his eyes and drifts away inside his head, taking comfort in old memories, knowing they’re all he has left now.

_It had been his mother who had told him to escape._

_“Sanghyukkie,” she cooed. Sanghyuk was only six, and he only has a distant memory of her face, her voice. He tries to think of it every day so it doesn’t fade away. “You need to run.”_

_By that time, she was very sick—he didn’t know it then, but looking back he can see it. Their Master had to gently keep pushing her back into bed every time she tried to get up and fulfill her duties around the house; he had tugged Sanghyuk away instead, shown him how to sweep up the sand and carry buckets of water from the vaporators to the tanks. That Master was kind, and he had a soft voice, although Sanghyuk can’t remember what he looked like. He had owned Sanghyuk’s mother since before he was born._

_“Run where?” he whispered, feeling very scared. This wasn’t his mother. His mother was pretty, and looked like sunshine when she smiled. This woman was gaunt and thin and pale, and when she put her hand on Sanghyuk’s cheek her skin was cold._

_“Anywhere,” she replied, her voice thin and reedy. “You need to get off this planet. I know you’re better than this. The galaxy has something good in store for you. I know it.” She smiled sadly at him, and winked. “I can feel it in my bones, you know.”_

_She had died not long after that, and then not long after that his Master had sold him. Sanghyuk hadn’t understood why. Why couldn’t he stay with his mother? Why couldn’t he stay with his nice Master, who refused to look Sanghyuk in the eyes as he handed her over to a strange woman? What did his mother mean? He didn’t like his new Master, and had tried to run away more times than he can count—which meant he was sold. Again and again, he was taken to market and auctioned off like a piece of meat, and it was only when he got a little bit older that he realised how horrible the whole system was. By the time his last Master bought him, he was as bitter and jaded as an eleven-year-old could be, and his mother’s words were ringing in his head. It helped, of course, that his Master was sadistic, and seemed to enjoy torturing Sanghyuk in every way possible and even new inventive ones._

_But now that he’s curled up in a ball shivering, clutching the pieces of his collar to his chest, he’s not sure he’s made the right decision at all. What life does he have now? Sure, he is free. But at what cost? He can’t ever go back to Mos Espa, he knows. Can’t ever see his friends again. Can’t visit his mother’s grave. All he has is the blaster. That is all he is reduced to._

“Wake up.”

Sanghyuk does, his eyes snapping open. He feels himself again—he feels complete. He has overcome too many hurdles now to fall down right before the finish line. He’s not that helpless little boy on Tatooine anymore, free and terrified with nothing but a blaster to his name. He has Taekwoon, and he has Hongbin, and he has the Force. Not that he can use it much.

“There you are,” Taekwoon murmurs with a smile, and Sanghyuk knows he’s not just talking about how he’s awake again. “We’re here. How are you?”

With a cocky grin, Sanghyuk clambers out of the airspeeder and draws his blaster, the blaster that’s carried him through so much shit, and cocks it. “Ready to spill some Sith blood.”

He doesn’t even notice Wonshik standing off to the side, his arms folded, shaking his head, until he snorts. “ _Honestly_. I don’t know what it is with you two. You both have more mood swings than my sister. One moment you’re emo and the next you’re baying for blood.”

“And why are you still here?” Sanghyuk rounds on him, holstering his blaster and putting his hands on his hips. “You’ve done your job. You’ve got us here, wherever here is. Aren’t you going to piss off now?”

“Wherever here is” appears to be a landing platform about halfway up one of Nar Shaddaa’s endless skyscrapers. It’s the middle of the day, but it doesn’t really feel like it—it almost feels like it could rain, which is interesting. He didn’t even know it could rain here. Wonshik is suited up in his rough and dented armour, which is an interesting maroon colour, and he has his helmet tucked under his arm. “Are you calling me a coward?” he growls, taking a step forward.

Sanghyuk shrugs easily. “We told you to help us find Hakyeon. Presumably, he’s somewhere around here. Your part of the job is over. It would make no sense for you to stay and help us,” he points out.

“But I _really_ enjoy your company,” Wonshik whines slightly sarcastically, slinging an arm around Sanghyuk’s neck and tugging him close, nuzzling his hair. “You’re fun.”

Sanghyuk is just about to start laughing when he sees Taekwoon watching them with dark eyes, and when he reaches out to touch him through the Force is shocked by what he sees there—it’s _jealousy_ , as plain and as clear as day, and because he is petty it sends a thrill through him. Instead of laughing, though, he slides an arm around Wonshik’s waist to slip down to his hip, watching as Taekwoon narrows his eyes slightly. “Who doesn’t? I’m a delight to be around,” he mutters to Wonshik, entirely enjoying this.

“Enough,” Taekwoon snaps, and they guiltily sidle apart. “Wonshik, where is Hakyeon?”

Extending his hand, Wonshik points up and up and up, to the top of the building they’re parked next to. “Up there. He bought the top three floors for himself. Last time I was there it was his base of operations, so to speak. He seemed pretty entrenched there.” He shakes his head and glances at the airspeeder. “We can’t fly up; he’ll sense us coming. We’ll have to do it the hard way. We shouldn’t meet any real resistance until we start getting near the top.”

Taekwoon closes his eyes, and not for the first time Sanghyuk is struck by his beauty, tinged with tranquility. They wait as the wind whips their hair around furiously, until Taekwoon opens his eyes again and nods. “Hongbin is up there. I can sense him. He is… injured.”

Wonshik and Sanghyuk look at each other dubiously. Injured could mean anything, but Taekwoon makes it clear he isn’t going to elaborate as he flips the hood of his robe up and heads towards the doors on the other side of the landing platform. Following him, Sanghyuk slips his helmet over his head, seeing his visor blink into life. He’s absolutely terrified, even as Satele’s voice swims in the back of his head: _fear is the path to the dark side._ He’s not too worried about that. He couldn’t fall to the dark side even if he wanted to; he’s not even a Jedi. And the _last_ thing he wants to be is a Sith. He might be angsty, and he might be too quick to anger, and impulsive and rash—Sanghyuk is hyperaware of his own faults—but he isn’t evil, and he doesn’t relish in hatred. All he can do is trust in his own morals, not the ones of the Jedi, and hope that they’ll be enough for him. It’s worked so far.

Their journey up to the top of the building is tiring, especially since the lift is out of order which means they have to traipse up countless flights of stairs. By the time they’ve done about thirty, he’s lagging behind, and after another twenty Wonshik is trudging along beside him as Taekwoon soars ahead. He can sense Taekwoon’s apprehension at what he’ll find, but he isn’t concerned—Taekwoon is drawing strength and tranquility from the Force, and Sanghyuk can feel it surrounding him.

“You didn’t—tell me—about your—visions,” Wonshik pants. “You just—said—dreams.”

Sanghyuk grimaces, and looks over at Wonshik, who has donned his helmet as well. He blinks when he realises it’s Mandalorian armour, too, although a slightly different design to his. “They didn’t start—becoming visions—until recently,” he replies.

Wonshik gives him a side glance, or what looks like a side glance; it’s hard to tell with the helmets. “Since you—found—Taekwoon?”

 _How much of the story does he know?_ Sanghyuk wonders, and vows to tell him the full version once this is over. He’d started off hating him, but Wonshik has proven to be very hard to hate, especially when he’s sticking his neck out for them and helping them like this. “Yeah. Since—I found—Taekwoon.”

They fall into silence and climb the rest of the way up wearily, stopping once for a few minutes to catch their breath. Sanghyuk’s not unfit by any sense of the word, but tackling this many flights of stairs at once is a challenge even for him—he wouldn’t be surprised if, somewhere above them, Taekwoon is having trouble, too.

Eventually, though, they reach the top—or at least as close to the top as Taekwoon is willing to take them, for fear that Hakyeon will sense him coming. He flips his hood down and stares at the other two as they struggle upwards, taking no pity on them. “What should we expect?” he asks Wonshik.

Wonshik makes a face, and huffs and puffs for a few moments before starting. “I only know about the top and bottom floors. The bottom floor is the entrance, and has guest rooms, as well as a holonet terminal and a monitoring station. What he’s monitoring, I have no idea.”

“Probably some evil Sith network,” Sanghyuk snipes.

“The top floor is his personal rooms—bedroom, bathroom, sitting room. There’s a protocol droid who often hangs around in this area, but it’s harmless. A speeder pad, probably with an airspeeder on it.” Wonshik shrugs. “I have no idea what’s on the middle floor, as I said. That’s probably where your Padawan is being held.”

They wait in silence as Taekwoon broods on the information, before nodding decisively. “Wonshik,” he barks, and Wonshik straightens up. “Stick by my side. We’ll engage the Sith, try and keep him away from Hongbin, lest he kills him in retaliation. Have you fought a Sith before?”

This is the first time Sanghyuk has seen Taekwoon coordinating a mission properly, and underneath his helmet he’s gaping like an idiot. Taekwoon’s quiet, soft voice carries authority that belies his age, and when he speaks it’s with a quiet assuredness that he will get the job done. He supposes that’s what all Jedi must be like in situations like this, but then considers that none of them can really compare to Taekwoon.

“And you, Sanghyuk,” Taekwoon says, turning his dark eyes on Sanghyuk, the full force of his stare washing over him in waves. “You are _not_ to engage the Sith in any way. Don’t talk to him, don’t look at him.”

He bristles, straightening up to his full height and sticking out his chest. “Hey, I fought Jaehwan before, on Tatooine. I can handle—”

“You got lucky,” Taekwoon deadpans. “Sooner or later your luck will run out and I’d rather you not die on me in the middle of a mission.”

Sanghyuk takes an involuntary step back, rage bubbling through him. He’s just about had enough of Taekwoon’s mood swings—so caring one moment, so cold the next. It’s enough to drive him crazy, crazier than he already is, and it’s burning through his patience very quickly indeed. “I’ll try not to inconvenience you by _dying,”_ he spits.

“Good. Don’t engage. Don’t look at him. Your job is to get to Hongbin and escort him to safety. Take the lift down back to the airspeeder, or take the Sith’s. Rendezvous back at the apartment.”

The instructions are as clear as daylight, but Sanghyuk has always had a problem with taking orders, and sneers at Taekwoon underneath his helmet without bothering to reply. He’s a liability, he knows this, but he’s not _incompetent_. The fact that he’s lived this long proves that. Taekwoon is treating him like he’s an Initiate back on Tython, a child, and it makes his blood boil.

“Move out,” Taekwoon says, and miserably Sanghyuk trails doggedly behind them, wishing he’d brought T7 along. It would have been nice to have _someone_ on his side, even if it’s just a droid.

The rest of the way up the staircase, the next five flights or so, he spends stewing in his own anger. Anger isn’t good, he knows that; anger leads to mistakes, and he’s vulnerable enough already. But he just can’t get a read on Taekwoon in the slightest, and his confusion is taking him down a dark path that he can’t be bothered to correct. What does it matter, anyway? He’s just a lackey of the Jedi. It’s what he’s always been. What he’s doing now is no different than fetching water for Satele, back on Tython, but with a little more danger thrown into the mix.


	6. Chapter 6

He stays silent as Taekwoon reaches the door that Wonshik indicates as leading into Hakyeon’s apartment. He doesn’t say a word as Taekwoon, with a lightsaber, slices open the door and darts inside the apartment, Wonshik at his back. He does nothing but watch and follow, traipsing through the silent apartment, until it all goes to shit.

Something explodes. He doesn’t know what. Possibly a gas container, possibly from the kitchen. All he knows is he’s being flung backwards, and then he’s smacking into a wall and sliding down to the floor ungraciously. Dazed, but not injured. Wonshik is already back on his feet, and Taekwoon hadn’t fallen down at all. There’s smoke everywhere, the haze making it hard to see, and as Sanghyuk clambers to his feet he flicks a button on his visor, hoping it will cut through the smoke. It doesn’t. They are blind.

A red lightsaber illuminates with a hum, visible through the smoke.

He freezes.

Taekwoon is fast, faster than anything he’s ever seen before. He’s drawn his lightsabers and is leaping towards the red before Sanghyuk can even move, and before he can do anything they’ve disappeared into the smog. All he can see is two purple blades, dancing and whirling and striking the singular red one. He can’t _see_ , he can’t do anything, and although he’s standing there with blasters in hand—when did he draw those?—he cannot help. Wonshik is by his side, yelling something, but there’s a ringing in his ears from the explosion and he can’t quite hear properly: “move—smoke—help—Taekwoon.”

Blasters still in hand, he takes a deep breath and draws from the Force, as Satele taught him. He can’t do anything impressive—can’t fling anyone across a room—but when he reaches out and _pushes_ he feels the Force respond, and with a _whoosh_ the smoke is blown away. Taekwoon is fighting with the Sith he saw in his nightmares, Hakyeon, and his world slows down again as Taekwoon neatly backflips over him, parrying a stab in mid-air, his face the very picture of tranquility. What he feels from the Force, though, is awful: Hakyeon’s blind hatred, focussed entirely on Taekwoon. He isn’t even aware there is anyone else in the room. Taekwoon is calm and serene, but the pure violent weight of that hatred nearly brings Sanghyuk to his knees. He has never felt anything like it.

“Go,” Wonshik screams at him, and pushes him towards a lift off to the side, its doors open and waiting.

For a moment he hesitates. Taekwoon’s brow is beading with sweat as he crosses his lightsabers against Hakyeon’s, but he looks almost _bored_ , like he could do this all day. Wonshik fires at Hakyeon, who ducks and whirls away, and Taekwoon looks up and catches Sanghyuk’s eyes.

And he winks.

Sanghyuk whirls, sprinting towards the lift, feeling heavier than usual, every step taking an age. He’s in, finally, and nearly punches the button to close the doors in his desperation. What had Wonshik said? The middle floor? He slaps the button for two and doubles over, taking huge gulps of air, his visor warning him he’s burning through oxygen extremely fast. He didn’t know what to expect, seeing Taekwoon in action, but he hadn’t expected that. Graceful, lithe, like water made solid; his two lightsabers looked not like two weapons but rather two extensions of himself, and he wielded them with a poise that is beyond anything he could imagine.

The lift opens up into a blank hallway, in contrast to the lush furnishings of the level below. Everything is white, broken up only by grey—grey doors, grey carpet. His feet sink into it as he walks, his head whipping from side-to-side, and he realises that he can’t hear anything of the fight below. He could tap into the Force again, but he really, _really_ doesn’t want to feel that hate again, so he just takes a deep breath and tries to decide where to start. There’s eight doors, and he pushes open the one closest to him, half-expecting a torture chamber. Inside is nothing but white chair, the monotony in the room broken only by the silver of the restraints on the arms. He represses a shudder and shuts the door again.

He only makes it to the third door before he hears a voice, a voice that he _knows_ is Hongbin’s, and turns and sprints to the end of the hallway, flinging open the door without really knowing what to expect. He still has no idea if his most recent vision was in the present or the future, doesn’t know what shape Hongbin’s going to be in. When he sidles inside, it takes him a moment to realise that the figure crumpled on the ground is Hongbin before he dives to his side, rolling him over and nearly recoiling. His vision had to be the present. It _must_ have been. There’s no other way to describe Hongbin’s injuries: blood all over his face, his nose broken, one of his eyes swelling shut. He reaches for Sanghyuk, but his arm flops in an unnatural way and Sanghyuk nearly retches. It’s broken, snapped clean in half, one end of the bone protruding through the skin. He doesn’t even want to think about what other injuries Hongbin has, not when he coughs and sprays blood all over Sanghyuk’s helmet.

“Hongbin,” he coos, yanking off his helmet so Hongbin can tell who it is. “It’s okay. I’ll get you out of here.”

But he has no idea what to do. Jedi can heal, but he’s not a Jedi, and somehow he knows that these injuries go way past even Taekwoon’s abilities. Hongbin needs a doctor, but he doesn’t know where to find one on this godforsaken moon. His heart is racing as Hongbin curls a fist and rests it against Sanghyuk’s cheek, trying to smile and wincing. “I know. I felt… the Force,” he murmurs, and coughs more blood.

“Look,” he says, and reaches inside his breastplate to close his fingers around the credit chip he always keeps in his breast pocket, the same credit chip Hongbin gave him a year ago. He pulls it out and levitates it in his hand, although it’s hard to do when he’s this traumatised, when his connection to the Force is tenuous. “Look at what I can do.”

This time Hongbin’s smile is a bit brighter, and he struggles to sit up, looking at Sanghyuk almost… proudly. Which is absurd. He should be worrying about himself, but instead he’s grinning up at Sanghyuk even as his chest rattles horribly. “I knew you could,” he breathes, and then coughs again. “Master… where?”

Sanghyuk doesn’t have a chance to answer him before Hongbin loses consciousness completely, slumping in Sanghyuk’s arms, his eyes rolling back in his head. The panic sets in almost immediately. Unless Hongbin gets to a doctor soon he is going to die. That is a certainty. _There is no death, there is the Force._ The closing words of the Jedi Code ring in his head, sure and quietly steadfast, but he recoils against them. _No!_ Hongbin is his friend, and he won’t let him die, he _can’t_ die, Sanghyuk won’t let him.

He doesn’t even realise that he’s crying until someone’s arms come around him and tug him backwards, and he rails against the restraint violently. It’s just Wonshik, though, and he goes limp when Wonshik yells at him to stop struggling.

“What are you doing here?” he chokes out, crawling back to hover over Hongbin, not even looking at Wonshik. “Taekwoon…”

“Is fine. Hakyeon made a swipe at me. Got me pretty good on my leg,” Wonshik’s voice is grim, and at that, Sanghyuk does look at him. He’s sitting heavily, his leg stretched out in front of him, a clear slice through the armour. “I was lucky not to lose it. But I’m no use to anyone like this.”

“He needs a doctor,” Sanghyuk replies, wiping his eyes and ignoring the blood—Hongbin’s blood—that comes off with it. “He’s dying.”

Wonshik looks between Sanghyuk and Hongbin on the floor, his eyes grim, before he decides something and nods. He struggles to his feet, keeping all his weight on his good leg, and dons his helmet again. “I’ll get him to a hospital. I’ll take Hakyeon’s speeder.”

There’s no more words between them as they lift Hongbin between them, Sanghyuk reassured by the rise and fall of his chest, as shallow as the movement may be. They limp to the elevator, Sanghyuk taking the majority of Hongbin’s weight, mindful of Wonshik’s leg. He’s still feeling so cut up he can barely breathe, but at least he knows now Hongbin has a chance. He could live. He _will_ live.

“Give him hell,” Wonshik tells him as he settles himself in the driver’s seat of the airspeeder, his voice grim and serious. “I know you will.”

Sanghyuk stands on the speeder pad in the rain and watches it fly away until he can’t see it anymore. Then, donning his helmet, he turns around and heads back inside, galvanised.

//

The lift doors open and he is slammed backwards, managing to stay on his feet just barely. The shields on his armour ping, his visor lighting up, and he squints through the gloom to see—to see—to see Taekwoon and Hakyeon pushing on each other using the Force. Sanghyuk can see the energy, he can _see_ the glowing light between their hands, he can see the scowl on Hakyeon’s face and the peace on Taekwoon’s, so striking and opposite that all he can do is blink as Hakyeon pushes and Taekwoon is forced back a step.

“My Master is going to tear you apart,” Hakyeon snarls, his face twisted into a mockery of itself.

In a movement that’s quick and smooth, Taekwoon takes a deep breath and pushes back, and Hakyeon goes flying across the room, landing on his feet like a cat. “I don’t think so,” he replies quietly, a complete lack of emotion in his voice.

The difference between them is startling. Sanghyuk knows that negative emotions—hate, rage, fear—fuel the dark side of the Force, and it’s clear that Hakyeon is drawing on those. Taekwoon, on the other hand, is a blank state. It’s almost like he’s meditating, except he’s holding out a hand to catch his lightsaber and slashing at Hakyeon. His every move is natural, like breathing, like he doesn’t even have to think. It’s beautiful to watch, which is fucked up considering all their lives are in danger, but it is what it is.

“He told me _everything,”_ Hakyeon hisses, parrying Taekwoon’s strike, their faces close together, illuminated by red and purple. “I know all your weaknesses.”

“No, you don’t,” Taekwoon says, and kicks Hakyeon in the stomach.

The wear and tear of the fight is starting to show for both of them; Hakyeon’s got a cut on his forehead, and the edge of Taekwoon’s robe is slashed, presumably from a lightsaber. Sanghyuk is still standing in the elevator, blaster in hand but unable to move, when Hakyeon sees an opening and slashes at Taekwoon, who dodges backwards—but nearly trips on some debris from the explosion, his ankle rolling underneath him. Shadowing him, Hakyeon twirls his lightsaber in his hand and moves it down—down towards Taekwoon’s neck, which is exposed as he desperately tries to duck—

The whole world is moving in slow motion as Sanghyuk takes one smooth stride forward, and it’s on instinct rather than any conscious movement that he raises his blaster and fires a shot—except Hakyeon senses him, and twists out of the way just in time, the bolt skimming his neck and opening a wound there.

“What’s this?” he growls, and before Sanghyuk can move he stretches out his hand and hauls Sanghyuk into the air. He struggles, trying to raise his blaster, but with a twitch of his fingers Hakyeon throws it away. “Did you replace your Padawan so soon?”

“Leave him out of this,” Taekwoon mutters, lightsabers poised but not daring to move. “He is innocent. None of this was his choice.”

Hakyeon narrows his eyes slightly, and when he closes his fist, Sanghyuk feels a hand close around his throat. “Somehow I doubt that, Jedi scum. There are no innocents in this conflict. Besides… I sense he is of great value to you.”

“Don’t,” Taekwoon says, both a plea and a warning all at once.

Sanghyuk struggles to breathe, the room starting to swim before his eyes. This is just what it was like in his visions; this is what Hongbin must have been through. The awful feeling of the dark side of the Force surrounds him as he manages to choke out, “You and I—are the same.” Before Hakyeon can ask how, Sanghyuk reaches out with his free hand and traces a line around his own neck, the sign of a collar. “I—freed myself. You—can.”

For a moment, for just a brief, blissful moment, the glow fades from Hakyeon’s eyes and he looks normal—normal and a little bit scared, too. Sanghyuk feels a swirling sea of indecision, where before there was nothing but hatred, and for a second they’re nothing but two slaves, staring at each other across an impossible rift, neither wearing collars but both feeling the weight of them. But then Hakyeon’s eyes glow orange again, and he closes his fist and throws Sanghyuk clean across the room, an inhuman roar erupting from him. “You dare?” he screams, and all Sanghyuk can do is lay there, dazed, as Hakyeon leaps towards him, lightsaber raised over his head, poised to strike.

“No,” Taekwoon snarls, leaping in front of Sanghyuk and stopping his strike with crossed lightsabers. “Leave him alone.”

And then he’s on Hakyeon, attacking with a flurry of volleys and strikes that’s fueled with a passion and affection that burns so bright it nearly hurts Sanghyuk’s heart to feel. This is wrong in every single way, Jedi aren’t meant to _do_ this, they’re not meant to form attachments or fall in love or attack like this—but step by step Taekwoon forces Hakyeon back until they’re on the balcony of the apartment, the traffic rushing by, the rain pouring down on them.

Sanghyuk staggers after them, gasping for air and realising that he’s probably broken a rib. They’re going at it with a new ferocity now, and it’s clear that they are both giving it their all—gone is Taekwoon’s serenity, his boredom. Now he’s grim and self-assured, fighting like he’s fighting for his life, determined and _passionate_. The very thing a Jedi shouldn’t be, not when it’s motivated by emotions.

He doesn’t even look when he raises his other blaster and squeezes off a shot—just closes his eyes and puts all his trust in the Force that it will hit its target. When he opens his eyes, Hakyeon has a hand clasped over his abdomen, his eyes wide and his mouth dropping open as blood runs through his fingers. Sanghyuk opens his mouth to tell Taekwoon to strike _now_ , while Hakyeon’s in shock, and as if reading his mind Taekwoon whirls, lightsabers primed to strike—

With a movement that’s faster than anything, faster than even Taekwoon, Hakyeon crouches and leaps back, flinging himself gracefully over the balcony without even a word. Sanghyuk rushes over to the railing, but the Sith is gone; whether he landed on an airspeeder, or is falling to his death, he has no way of knowing.

But it’s over.

They stand there like that for a moment, the rain pelting down around them, no words between them, before Sanghyuk turns around and limps back inside the ruined apartment. His heart is beating at a million miles an hour, and every time he breathes he feels like he’s being stabbed in the chest, but at least he’s _alive_. At least Taekwoon is alive. Unless Hakyeon is very, very lucky, he will die from his wound, which was one of Sanghyuk’s better shots. It’s over.

“Please get me out of here,” he murmurs as he tugs off his helmet, closing his eyes and swaying on the spot as all the adrenaline rushes away. “Please.”

He feels Taekwoon come up behind him and turns into the Jedi, who closes his arms around Sanghyuk, pulling him close and dropping a gentle kiss on the top of his head. “Okay,” he replies, but neither of them make a move to pull away.

//

“You’re injured.”

They’ve been in the apartment for an hour now, and the rain shows no sign of abating. When they’d arrived T7 had received a message from Wonshik that simply said _‘HB stable, will update’_ and nothing more, so they’d settled into wait for more news. Sanghyuk has been limping around the entire time, the pain in his side steadily getting worse, but apparently Taekwoon has only just noticed.

“Yeah,” he grunts, settling himself down on the lounge gently, wincing at the stabbing pain that takes his breath away. “Took your bloody time noticing.”

Taekwoon sits beside him, placing a hand on his forehead, feeling for a fever. “I apologise. I’ve been distracted… Worrying about Hongbin. How bad is it?”

Shifting, Sanghyuk takes the time to assess, taking a huge gulp of air in and whining a little at the pain that results. “Um, pretty bad. But don’t worry. It can wait until the others get back. I’m not going to die, or anything.”

Raising an eyebrow, Taekwoon reaches out and lays his hands over Sanghyuk’s problem rib, on his right side, the touch so intimate that he shifts back instinctively. “Uh-huh. Your streak of luck hasn’t run out yet, it seems.” He closes his eyes. “Let me heal you.”

“Isn’t that, um, an abuse of power, or something?” Sanghyuk hedges, both loving how Taekwoon is so close to him and hating it, because it’s well-established that they can go nowhere like this, and it’s just pure torture to have their faces so close together and not being able to _do_ anything about it.

Before he can voice more of his protests—which are more along the lines of _please move before I kiss you again_ —Taekwoon’s hands move down to the bottom of his shirt and tug it up and over his head, so he’s sitting there shirtless. Automatically he covers himself with his hands, but Taekwoon tugs his wrists away, his eyes sweeping over his chest and abdomen. Sanghyuk closes his eyes and bites his lip, _hard_ , because this is way more intimate than it should be and all he wants to do is peel Taekwoon’s layers away one by one to discover what’s underneath, to discover what he sounds like when he moans. “You’re very unnerving, you know,” he murmurs more to himself than to Taekwoon.

“It is not my intention to unnerve you,” Taekwoon replies quietly, laying his hands on Sanghyuk’s injured side again.

There it is again, that rush of heat and pins-and-needles, directed straight at his rib, and this time when he takes a deep breath in the pain is gone entirely and he feels kind of high. When he opens his eyes, Taekwoon is staring at him, and his gaze is so intense that Sanghyuk closes his eyes again immediately, his heart racing at the closeness of it all. All the wind has been taken out of his sails; where before he was fighting so hard for the two of them, now he’s just exhausted. There’s no point. He needs to move on. “I don’t think a good Jedi would have done that,” he says. “A good Jedi wouldn’t have attacked Hakyeon the way you did, either.” It’s not a criticism, or at least, he doesn’t intend it that way—he’s just stating facts. The Jedi Code itself states _there is no emotion, there is peace_ and _there is no passion, there is serenity_. Taekwoon was acting on nothing but emotions and passion when he went for Hakyeon.

“I think it’s well established that I am not a very good Jedi,” Taekwoon replies wryly, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

And then he leans forward and kisses Sanghyuk.

For a moment, Sanghyuk is too stunned to do anything but blink—but then Taekwoon slides an arm around his waist and tugs him onto his lap, and Taekwoon is suddenly very _warm_ and very _real_ underneath him, and Sanghyuk kisses him back fiercely, pouring all his emotions into that kiss, hoping that Taekwoon will read them. It’s hot and heavy and furious, and he’s fisting his hands in the fabric of Taekwoon’s robe and pulling him closer desperately, because there’s still so much space between them even though they’re all over each other, and he can’t _stand_ it. This is everything he’s ever wanted since Taekwoon pushed him across the room what seems like weeks ago, and Taekwoon wants it too, because he doesn’t stop Sanghyuk when he reaches down between them and yanks at his belt, tugging it away, letting his lightsabers drop onto the sofa next to them, pulling at the collar of his robes to expose his chest. He manages to wind his fingers into Taekwoon’s hair, to pull away the band holding his hair back, and nearly gasps when it falls around his face in waves.

“Not here,” Taekwoon manages to say between kisses, his hands digging into Sanghyuk’s waist. “Sanghyuk, not here.”

They nearly fall over themselves in their eagerness to get to the bedroom, and when Taekwoon pins Sanghyuk down on the bed and licks a stripe up his chest he feels like he’s going to faint dead away. The Code prohibits passion, but passion is all there is between them as they slowly undress each other until they’re both stark naked and drinking each other in. Taekwoon’s body is beautiful, pale and lean and with slight muscles that shift whenever he moves. That’s not to say he’s frail, though; there’s a quiet kind of strength in the way he moves, in the way he picks Sanghyuk up to pull him into his lap again, and it boggles his mind.

“Listen, Sanghyuk,” Taekwoon begins, but he sounds quite breathy considering Sanghyuk is trailing bites down his neck. “I’ve never… This isn’t a situation I’ve found myself in before.”

“You mean you don’t get naked with people all the time?” Sanghyuk says, pretending to be shocked as he comes up for air. “And to think I had you pegged differently all this time.” There’s a joke on the tip of his tongue, a joke that’s entirely Wonshik in origin, but he swallows it and places his hand on Taekwoon’s cheek gently. “Me neither. We can work this out together.”

There’d been someone, back on Tython—just some Mirialan who brought in supplies. His green skin and tattoos had been exotic and intoxicating, but they’d never gone further than a few fumbles under each other’s clothes in some dark corner of the Temple. Sanghyuk’s heart wasn’t really in it, and it’s pretty clear why. Maybe he should be embarrassed at still being a virgin, considering he doesn’t even have an excuse like Taekwoon does, but there’s no judgement here. Besides, it feels right, the two of them doing this together; cheesy, but right.

When Taekwoon flips Sanghyuk over, pinning him to the bed, and begins kissing his way down Sanghyuk’s chest, he closes his eyes and hums contentedly, burying his hand in Taekwoon’s hair. This is what he’s been waiting for, and all the shit they’ve been through to bring them here like this is worth it, because now he has Taekwoon in his arms and— _shit_ —he swears he’s going to break a rib again as Taekwoon licks a hot stripe up his cock before closing his mouth around the head, looking up at Sanghyuk like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.

“Oh, my god,” Sanghyuk manages to gasp out, his fist curling in Taekwoon’s hair as he struggles not to thrust his hips up into the warm wetness of Taekwoon’s mouth. “I hate you for making me wait this long for this.”

“Hate leads to the dark side,” Taekwoon reminds him with a hint of a smile, slowly jerking Sanghyuk off.

“So does passion,” Sanghyuk snipes back, although he doesn’t mean it. Sure, Taekwoon is technically breaking a huge Jedi rule. But he’s not going to fall to the dark side. When he reaches out to touch the Force, he’s shocked by the waves of pure love and affection and just _goodness_ he feels radiating from Taekwoon; he glows so strongly from it he could probably be seen from orbit. God help them if there are any other Jedi nearby.

The way Taekwoon moves so slowly is torturous, his every touch designed to eke out moans from Sanghyuk like he’s rationing them. It’s almost too much, too damn much, so he finally tugs Taekwoon’s head away from his dick to get his attention and says, perfectly seriously, “I need you.”

It’s irrelevant that he’s not really sure how he needs Taekwoon, just that he needs him in a way that’s more than this, and when Taekwoon lies on top of him he groans loudly at all the delicious skin contact. They look so good like this, together. It’s where he’s meant to be. It’s where they’re both meant to be, and the rest of the galaxy can go fuck itself. This is all he needs right now.

After a short discussion about logistics, (“please can I fuck you,” he’d breathed, and watched as a slow shudder of pleasure went through Taekwoon) Sanghyuk goes and fetches the condoms and lube he’d bought, just as a precaution, a while ago. Slowly, taking their time, they take turns fingering each other, finding what the other likes; Sanghyuk has to bury his head in a pillow to muffle his own moans because he’s not really sure how Taekwoon can be so good at this when he claims to have no experience, but when he moves his fingers inside him he swears he’s going to go blind, the pleasure is just that great. He returns the favour, and relishes every single noise Taekwoon makes, every way he screws up his face, every way he lets himself go completely and totally. It’s a natural transition to roll Taekwoon onto his belly, to put a pillow under his hips, to tug him backwards and to push inside him slowly, waiting for Taekwoon to stretch, to adjust, until Sanghyuk is flush inside him and all he knows is this, all he wants is this.

“I hate myself for waiting this long,” Taekwoon mumbles, but it’s muffled by the way he’s got his face buried in the mattress, his hair fanning around him on the sheets.

“Hate leads to the dark side,” Sanghyuk teases, but there’s no weight in it and he’s trembling as he struggles to hold himself back.

When they start moving together, Sanghyuk swears he sees stars, and when Taekwoon turns his head to the side Sanghyuk fixes his eyes on the hollow of his throat and nearly whimpers. He looks more gorgeous than should be allowed, really, splayed out like this underneath Sanghyuk, his fists clenching in the sheets as he’s fucked slowly into the mattress. They really have no idea what they’re doing, but it doesn’t really matter, not when it feels this good—and when Taekwoon gasps _feel me_ Sanghyuk does, reaching out with his mind, through the Force, feeling a connection open up between them. Taekwoon doesn’t need to say the words out loud, not when Sanghyuk can read them running through his mind so clearly, but he does anyway, like it’s the only thing he _can_ say: an endless litany of ‘I love you’s, dissolving into gibberish the more Sanghyuk rolls his hips, the faster he thrusts. And just like Taekwoon, Sanghyuk doesn’t have to say the words back, the words that have been written on his heart since they first met, but he does anyway: _I love you too_ , a prayer, his redemption.

When it’s over, they curl up in each other’s arms and just exist, the truth of what is finally open between them. All that fighting, all those spats, all that bullshit evaporates in the face of the knowledge that Taekwoon loves him. He understands, now, why this sort of thing is forbidden. It’s intoxicating, and addicting, and he knows he won’t be able to give this up, not ever. But he doesn’t care. And when Taekwoon presses a kiss to his temple and skims his hand through Sanghyuk’s hair, he knows the truth of it is this: the rest of the galaxy doesn’t matter. Only this does.

//

The message from Wonshik via T7 comes a few hours later: _HB fine. Spent a few hours in a bacta tank. We are on our way back now_ , and they get up and get dressed slowly—or at least, they try to. They get a bit sidetracked when Taekwoon slips in the shower behind Sanghyuk and pins him up against the wall.

“I didn’t know you were a slave,” Taekwoon says as he’s doing up his belt, returning his lightsabers to their rightful place on his hips.

Sanghyuk shrugs. “Not many people do. I don’t talk about it much.”

He can sense the curiosity behind Taekwoon’s stare, but he doesn’t push it further, much to Sanghyuk’s relief. That part of his life is something he likes to leave behind him, because if he opens the door to all those feelings he doubts he’ll ever be able to close it again. There’s no point dwelling on a past that he’s long-buried.

The reunion, when Hongbin walks through the door, is emotional. He and Taekwoon share a long hug, and when they pull away Taekwoon cups his hands around Hongbin’s cheeks, the grin they share infectious to Wonshik and Sanghyuk, who stand on the sidelines and let them get reacquainted. He’d sort of underestimated the strength of the bond between them, but seeing it now is something else entirely. Sanghyuk had thought that Jedi couldn’t communicate telepathically, and they can’t, not really, but it almost seems like it as they hug each other again.

“How’s your leg?” Sanghyuk asks, turning to Wonshik to look him up and down. “Did you get a stint in a bacta tank too?”

Wonshik makes a face and peers down at his leg, as if to see that it’s still attached. “Nah. All I got was synthflesh. Only he got a cool bath.”

Sanghyuk’s not of the opinion that being injured to the point of needing submersion in a bacta tank is “cool”, but it’s well-established that Wonshik’s brain works in ways that will never be really clear to him, so he just rolls his eyes. “Hey, thanks,” he says, being sincere for once. “We wouldn’t have been able to do that without you. I know it means a lot to Taekwoon.”

Now it’s Wonshik’s turn to roll his eyes. “God damn. I save Hongbin’s life and all I get from you is a half-hearted thanks,” he snipes back, but his tone is lighthearted and Sanghyuk knows he doesn’t mean it.

“Okay. I’ll buy you a blaster or something instead,” Sanghyuk replies, before whispering under his breath, “asshole.” That earns him a playful shove from Wonshik, and he’s just about to start an all-out, no-holds-barred wrestling match when Taekwoon clears his throat, his eyebrow raised.

“Don’t you two want to get off this stupid planet?” Hongbin complains, and before he can say anything more Sanghyuk crosses the floor in two strides and hugs him so tight he nearly lifts him off the floor. He looks completely different to when Sanghyuk saw him last; now the colour is back in his face, and this time when he raises his arm to hug Sanghyuk back, it’s in perfect working order, the bone back where it should be.

Sanghyuk pulls back slightly to tug on the end of Hongbin’s Padawan braid. “It’s a moon,” he tells him, but he can’t keep the grin off his face. “But yes. Let’s get the fuck away from here.”

He’s a little sad as he leaves the apartment with his bag slung over his shoulder, T7 beeping excitedly in the hallway in front of him, and takes one last look around. He hates this stupid moon, hates the Hutts and hates the Sith, but at least there was one good thing that came out of all of this—and despite himself, he’s going to miss the apartment a little bit, even though they were there for less than a week. It’s stupid of him, he knows, but it’s harder to shut that door behind him than it was to shut the door of his room back in the Temple on Tython; but then he didn’t have Taekwoon, then, and that’s all that matters.

“Sanghyuk? You coming?” Taekwoon calls from down the hall, peering around Wonshik’s shoulder worriedly.

Sanghyuk takes a deep breath, and, pulling his bag close to his chest, turns away from the door, smiling. “Yeah. Wait for me!”


	7. Epilogue

Satele has been going on for a full ten minutes. It’s absolutely mind-boggling. Sanghyuk has never seen her this mad before, not even when he spilt water all over her datapad, erasing a full terabyte of data on a certain Darth (as it turned out, the information _had_ been backed up in the archives, but he’d been worried she was going to evict him). It’s not outright anger, because of course Jedi aren’t meant to display that, but more disappointment and disgust. She’s been laying out, systemically, all of the ways each of them have fucked up in the past week. He’s pretty sure Master Bela Kiwiiks has nodded off, and the other Masters look incredibly bored.

“...But,” she says, her tone softening, and Sanghyuk and the others straighten up immediately. “Despite your rash behaviour, all of you displayed considerable bravery in rescuing Padawan Hongbin, and that is something to be admired. I wish there’d been more communication, but it is what it is now. As a result of your actions, Padawan Hongbin is alive and unharmed, and that’s more than most can say after being taken captive by a Sith. So… Well done.”

Sanghyuk and Wonshik exchange a long glance, neither of them really sure how to react. Wonshik’s only here because Taekwoon had insisted, anyway, so he looks distinctly out-of-place in his dingy, dented armour—although no more out-of-place than Sanghyuk did when he first arrived.

“Sanghyuk,” she begins, and Sanghyuk looks away from Wonshik to meet her eyes. “Even though you shouldn’t have taken off without letting us know, and you _definitely_ shouldn’t have stolen a ship… Your dedication to your friends is admirable. You consistently put their welfare above your own and took risks to your own life to help them. There’s no doubt that without you, things would not have ended so nicely. I’m immensely proud of you.” She sighs. “Just ask permission for a ship next time, would you?”

“Yes, Master,” Sanghyuk mumbles, bowing his head in a bow to her, silently marvelling at the way two words can be used in so different circumstances. How many times has he said those words in the past? How many times did he hate himself for submitting? But this is different from that, and he accepts Satele as his Master because he wants to, not because he’s forced to.

The rest of the Council meeting wraps up pretty quickly after that. Satele singles out Wonshik to offer him her personal thanks, and she’s so nice to him that by the time they all wander out of the Council hall he’s blushing, holding his hands to his cheeks like he can’t believe he’s worthy of such praise. Sanghyuk realises that he knows absolutely nothing about Wonshik as a person beyond the bounty hunter garb, and for all he knows, this could be the first time someone’s actually thanked him for something he’s done. The considerable sum of credits from the Council certainly helped, too.

“This is where we go our separate ways,” he says once they’re in the hangar. He’d followed them to Tython (rather reluctantly) in his own ship, which is parked next to Taekwoon’s—a sight for sore eyes if Sanghyuk had ever seen one. “It’s been fun and all, but I’m not really cut out for travelling with Jedi.” He grimaces. “As I said. I like living. Hanging around with you guys seems to make that hard.”

“Oh, come on,” Sanghyuk whines, sliding an arm around Wonshik’s waist. It’s worth it to see Taekwoon raise an eyebrow. “I need someone else who uses a blaster around. These guys don’t get it.”

“Tempting…” Wonshik replies, ruffling Sanghyuk’s hair. “But nah. I need to find a sunny planet and kick back and relax for a while. That’s the best part about being self-employed.”

Sanghyuk sighs. He really doesn’t like goodbyes. At least Wonshik doesn’t have motivation for not calling for a year, but still it’s tough. He pulls the older man in for a quick hug, screwing his eyes shut and wishing that he could imbue Wonshik with some of his luck. In his line of work, he needs it. “I hear Tatooine is nice at this time of year,” he says, pulling back and clapping Wonshik on the shoulder.

“Ew. I’ve already been there once and picked up a stray. Why would I go again?” Wonshik snipes back, but there’s no malice in his tone as he nods at Sanghyuk. “Be careful out there, okay?” To Taekwoon, over Sanghyuk’s shoulder, he says, “Keep the sand-rat safe, yeah? I’ll take him out drinking sometime when I come back from my holiday, and I can’t do that if he’s been bisected by a lightsaber. So, you know.” He shifts awkwardly. “Go out there and kick ass.”

They stand there and watch his ship take off, waving at it until they can’t see it anymore, and then Sanghyuk turns to the other two, his hands on his hips. “I suppose this is the part where you tell me to go back inside, that I’m not allowed to come along because it’s too dangerous.”

Hongbin skips forward and links their arms together, shaking his head. “I don’t care what Master Taekwoon says, but I want you to come.”

Taekwoon doesn’t even reply. He just winks at Sanghyuk, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips, and jerks his head towards his ship, sitting poised for takeoff. “Come on, then,” he murmurs, and Sanghyuk knows it’s an open invitation for him, too.

This time, the inside of the ship doesn’t seem clinical and claustrophobic, although it is still too cold for his tastes. He wanders around while the others prepare for takeoff, finding his old bedroom and dumping his stuff on the bed, and finds himself back on the bridge as they’re flying away. Just like the last time he was here, he flattens himself against the glass and watches as the bright blue of Tython’s sky opens up into the navy of space, dotted by thousands of twinkling stars, just beckoning to be seen. He still feels just as much wonder as last time, and perhaps even moreso because Taekwoon comes up next to him and links their fingers together as they look out into the expanse. The stars are still calling to him, just like they’ve always done, but now something in Taekwoon is calling to him, too.

“Where are we going?” he murmurs, low enough for only Taekwoon to hear, stealing glances at him out of the corner of his eye.

Taekwoon is silent for a moment, before he smiles at Sanghyuk, a smile so soft and full of love that he can’t bear to look at it for more than a few seconds, because it immediately sets a blush creeping up his neck. “Wherever you want to go, nau'kara.”

“What does that mean?”

Taekwoon looks out at the stars. “It’s Mando’a for _starlight_.”

Starlight. Sanghyuk squeezes Taekwoon’s hand gently, and looks out at the galaxy. He quite likes the sound of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last act will be up soon!


End file.
